It's difficult for me to believe that people can treat children like they are a commodity to be bought and sold. Then, add the fact that the children already have parents, but are simply stolen from them. Two things don't ring true to me about Georgia Tann's "philosophy" of taking children from poor families to give them to rich families so they have a better life. First of all, Georgia abused them - and allowed them to be abused by others. She only seemed to care about the "blond, blue or brown-eyed" children who were cute. So why did she bother taking others? She certainly didn't take care of them. You would think they were more of a burden to her if she didn't see them as adoptable. Look at Camellia. She was left behind simply because she had brown hair. Then she was raped and killed. So why take her in the first case? Secondly, since Georgia Tann treated children like a commodity, why not take care of them? If her sole (true) purpose was to make money, why not protect the product? What if an important person stopped by the Home and saw the children as they normally were: skinny, dirty and smelly.
It's sad that they never found Gabion or Judy's twin. With Cammelia presumably dead, Gabby was the child that Rill/May really wanted to find. No one knew if Judy's twin survived. There would have been no truthful birth record regardless, since the parents were told both babies died. If the twin lived, he most likely never knew he was even adopted. He would have been impossible to find. Gabion, however, was a toddler and the sisters loved him very much. Rill/May never stopped looking for him. I actually thought they would find him by the end of the book. I was disappointed by that, but at least they found "Stevie". I am glad his life turned out well, all things considered.
I was incredibly sad that Queenie died - and that Briny went off the deep end - but I am glad that Rill and Fern escaped their adopted home briefly to figure that out for themselves. I am SO happy that Rill returned to her new "family" too. I think Rill would have prevented herself from accepting her new family forever if she thought her parents were still alive and exactly how she left them. Obviously it was a tragedy that these children were taken from their parents that loved them so much. Once Queenie died though, Briny was in no state to provide a home for his kids.
Trent and Avery's love story was apparent from the beginning, but I am glad that Avery took the time to figure that out. Elliot and Avery were obviously very close friends, but they both knew in the end that their relationship was more of a friendship than husband & wife.
All those children in the hands of that evil woman. A very sad part of history that I didn't even know happened until reading this book. I had no idea who was who in the book until it was spelled out for me, except for May of course. I thought that Judy was related some way, but I had forgotten about the twins. (Which is odd since I never really believed that they died in the first place).
Wendy's Rating: ****
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