Julie DeweyRezensionen

This semi fictional story is a direct tie-in to the non-fiction book The Things They Left Behind. Based on the suitcases that were discovered in an abandoned Insane Asylum in New York. The author of this book is a distant relative to a woman who had supposedly spend some time in this Asylum in her younger years. The story of her life has been fictionalized based on family stories carried down through the years. The fact that they found her suitcase among the ones in the asylum may or may not be true but the story ties into that time period. The writing of this book was a bit juvenile, and choppy but still a good story for a rainy afternoon.

A lovely book about an unpleasant topic, TB. This historical fiction flows along with narrative from several characters impacted by TB in the pre-antibiotic later 1800's. The book relates the true story of Dr. Trudeau and his fresh air "cure" on the porches of houses in the Sarnac Lake, NY area. This book is a definite recommend!

I received a copy of this book for an honest review.

I wanted to love this book I enjoy the era the author attempted to set her tale in, but the books were riddled with anachronistic wording. When writing a historical fiction an author must carefully research the era they are setting their piece in if they want their work to sound authentic.

I found the number of and quality of the sex scenes in this book very off-putting. It is understandable that there be some, do to the characters and situations in the novel, but I felt they over done and tasteless.

While this book doesn't have as many grammatical errors as some self-published works, it still had too many for my taste.

This author has promise, but needs to work more on her historical research research if she wants to produce quality historical fiction.

Kirkus

KIRKUS REVIEW

An epic tale of the interlocking paths of orphans struggling to survive in 19th-century New York.

Tabitha Colleen Salt was born in 1850 on a farm in Westchester, New York, to loving parents. When her father died, her mother moved the two of them to New York City. They lived in the notorious Five Points District, known for its clamor, debauchery, and merciless gangs. Tabitha and her mother, Maura Anne Salt, manage to make ends meet, but Maura dies suddenly from dental surgery, and Tabitha is left to fend for herself. Not quite 11, she briefly lives under a stoop and makes fast friends with Scotty, already a hardened street kid. She moves to the Elizabeth Home for Girls and is sent westward by train as a part of a program to find suitable homes for orphans removed from the dangers and temptations of city life. Sister Agnes shows Tabitha great kindness, encourages her to forget her past, and rechristens her Mary. Mary cares for young orphan Edmund while on the train, and the two grow close like siblings. Mary and Edmund are adopted by families that live close to each other, and Mary quickly discovers that Scotty was adopted by a family nearby as well. Mary and Scotty eventually fall in love, while Edmund’s affections are captured by Gert; she, too, is an orphan who, emulating her mother, turns to prostitution to survive. Author Dewey is an experienced novelist (The Other Side of the Fence, 2015, etc.), and her skill shines through her artful braiding of several complex narratives. While Mary is the protagonist, much of the plot unfurls from the perspectives of the other orphans. Dewey affectingly depicts the stranglehold the orphans’ pasts exert over their present lives and the tenacity with which they embrace love and loyalty. Sometimes, the story takes a grim turn, but tragedy is never gratuitously introduced to this implausibly heartwarming novel.

A vivid dramatization of the plight of orphans, both poignant and historically sound.

I was very much attracted to this book as I reside partway in between the novel's starting place and ending place, and have visited in and around Saranac Lake a number of times and been in facilities that had previous lives at TB sanitariums. I did enjoy the premise of the novel, but I had some issues with the writing being a bit underdeveloped, and um, well I guess trite is the best word perhaps. I do have another of her works, The Back Building, on my kindle and still look forward to reading that. I like her choice of subject matter.

This is a book about tragedies in the late 1800's. When the breadwinner of a family passes away, women have few choices how to survive and keep their children fed. Many cannot. In the Five Points section of New York, crime is king. Children are recruited into gangs in order to be taken care of. It is a hellish world. When Tabitha loses everything, she is forced to make a tough choice. She meets Sister Agnes and decides to board the orphan train to find a new family on several stops along the way. She cares for a younger boy with asthma. Finally they find good homes in a smaller town.

This is not a book for the faint of heart. I praise Julie Dewey for using real history to put in her books. She tells things as they really are. This book is graphic, violent, and psychologically troublesome. She took this from ACTUAL HISTORY so that we learn that the olden days were not all sunshine and roses. The one thing I found complicated was so many first person accounts. The new people were confusing at first. Otherwise I could not put the book down. It has a great writing style, and Ms. Dewey knows her stuff very well.

Thank you to Julie Dewey and Word Slinger for giving me a free advance reviewer copy of this book to read and give my honest review.

I have read several fictional accounts of the orphan trains all from Christian writers and my enjoyment of them led me to “purchase” this book when the kindle edition was offered for free on Amazon. I’m glad I read it. This was more raw and a bit rougher than the Christian versions but that also makes it more realistic.

These kids had a tough lot and absolutely nothing about their lives was sweet and simple. In that regard the plight of orphans or unwanted children today is not really much different. I believe that is why these books call out to me. I am an adoptive mom of four special needs children brought to our family through the state foster care system. I see myself in Pap as I struggle sometimes to identify with who my children really are as they are somewhat foreign to me but in the end I pray that my children see me more like Edna…proud to be their mom and loving who they are.

For all of my reviews visit my blog at: https://blessedandbewildered.wordpress.com

In 1860 Tabitha Salt was just 10 years old. When her father was killed in an accident, her mother sold their farm in Westchester N.Y. and moved them to Manhattan where she hoped to find work as a laundress.

Read the rest of the review on my blog: https://shouldireaditornot.wordpress.com/2015/06/19/forgetting-tabitha-the-story...

Iona Mueller grew up in an affluent home in Ithaca, NY in the early 1900's. Iona's mother wanted her to be the perfect young lady with skills in cooking, sewing, and keeping the house so Iona would be ready to marry. Iona however, would rather set traps for animals like her brothers and take care of the chickens. Iona had other quirks that made her parents upset and caused her to not make friends at school, she always counted her steps and had only befriended the maid, Hetty. When Iona has an outburst, her parents deliver her to the Willard Asylum. Iona has a difficult time at Willard, but also learns how to deal with her illness. She finds meaning working in the stables and befriends James, a farm hand. When Iona's life becomes endangered at Willard, her and another inmate, Cat, make a break for town and escape the harsh treatment at Willard. Years later, Iona's great-granddaughter, Jenna is starting to display strange behaviors. Jenna went from being an extrovert, to being afraid of everything and licking different surfaces. Jenna's grandmother remembers Iona's own mental health issues and goes on a search for any information about Iona that might be able to help Jenna. She is able to locate Iona's actual suitcase from when she was first brought to the asylum.

I was first drawn to this book because it is set near where I live and I know of the Willard Asylum. I also have experience working with people who happen to have mental health diagnosis. The aspects of the links with the suitcases found at the Willard also drew me in. Iona's story was intruiging; at first she seems like a perfectly normal girl who is a bit on the tomboy side, who likes to count things and who has very strict parents. Iona is endearing, even when she is skinning a rabbit; she is helping to feed Hetty's family. I felt for her when she had trouble making friends at school and when she is sent to Willard. When the seriousness of her mental health issues are revealed, it is a shock. I can tell that the author did a lot of research into the Willard Asylum and the treatment of the patients there. Iona's experience probably mirrored many of the real life patients that were kept there. Iona was lucky and made an escape from the Willard with the help of Cat, Iona was able to live her life with the person she fell in love with working at Willard. I was a little disappointed in the instant love connection between James and Iona, but it did enable Iona's character to continue her story through her great-granddaughter. I did appreciate the comparisons and contrasts of the mental health system in the past and present with Iona and Jenna's stories. Our medical treatment for people with mental health diagnoses has improved greatly, but still carries a terrible stigma that both Iona and Jenna's families felt. I really wanted the discovery of Iona's suitcase to lend more to the story and maybe reveal more secrets to her past, but the story was still rewarding.

This book was received for free in return for an honest review.½

"The Orphan Train Movement was a welfare program that transported children from crowded cities of the United States, such as New York City and Boston, to willing foster homes across the country. The orphan trains ran between 1853 and 1929, relocating an estimated 250,000 orphaned, abandoned, or homeless children. At the time the orphan train movement began, reformers estimated that 30,000 vagrant children were living on the streets of New York City."...WIKI

The Orphan Train is the premise of Forgetting Tabitha by Julie Dewey. The main character, Tabitha Salt comes from poor but loving parents, but when her father dies in an accident, Tabitha and her mother are forced to sell the farm and move to New York City. They relocate to The Five Points in New York, which is a neighborhood in Manhattan that is home to slums and gangs. Tabitha and her mother earn their living as laundresses, but soon Tabitha's mother gets sick and dies. This leaves Tabitha an orphan. She finds her way to a nun who helps children get adopted on the orphan trains. Thus begins Tabitha's (her name gets changed to Mary) journey on the orphan train. This book tells of a depressing time in our history that allowed children to be homeless, maybe getting adopted or farmed out to be someones servant. At times a heartbreaking story but at the same time inspirational in that a lot of the children were adopted out. I knew the term 'the boxcar children' but did not know a lot about the orphan trains. Definitely an eye opening read. There were some grammatical errors but all in all a wonderful read about the determination of one young girl to overcome unbeatable odds. A must read!!