Scan barcode
A review by pam2375
The Book of Lost Friends by Lisa Wingate
5.0
I loved this book! The Book of Lost Friends will be hard to beat for 2020. I suspect that it will be my favorite for the year.
Each chapter is written in alternating timelines. In 1875 we meet Hannie, a former slave and 1987, Benny a new school teacher, trying to get through to her kids, in a very rural area of Louisiana.
Sometimes reading books with alternating timelines like this can be very confusing and you simply wonder how they are going to intersect, WELLLLLLLLL, Ms Wingate did a wonderful job of tying the two together. I loved everything about this book.
I knew nothing about post Civil War and the "Lost Friends" newspaper article. Apparently, the freed slaves would post family names in the hopes of reconnecting with family members that had been ripped from their lives. These posts would circulate through the Black churches to be read by the pastor. The chapters that begin with the "lost friends" adds were heartbreaking.
I rarely (almost never) quote from books that I read, however, this is a quote that has stayed with me: "We die once when the last breath leaves our bodies. We die a second time when the last person speaks our name."
Many thanks to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballentine Books for this advanced readers copy. This book is due to release in April 2020.
Each chapter is written in alternating timelines. In 1875 we meet Hannie, a former slave and 1987, Benny a new school teacher, trying to get through to her kids, in a very rural area of Louisiana.
Sometimes reading books with alternating timelines like this can be very confusing and you simply wonder how they are going to intersect, WELLLLLLLLL, Ms Wingate did a wonderful job of tying the two together. I loved everything about this book.
I knew nothing about post Civil War and the "Lost Friends" newspaper article. Apparently, the freed slaves would post family names in the hopes of reconnecting with family members that had been ripped from their lives. These posts would circulate through the Black churches to be read by the pastor. The chapters that begin with the "lost friends" adds were heartbreaking.
I rarely (almost never) quote from books that I read, however, this is a quote that has stayed with me: "We die once when the last breath leaves our bodies. We die a second time when the last person speaks our name."
Many thanks to Netgalley and Random House Publishing Group - Ballentine Books for this advanced readers copy. This book is due to release in April 2020.