Our club was enjoying this book until the last segment, one part of which was supremely depressing and the other was extraordinarily convenient. We don't need a happy ending but at least something redeeming?

Very eye opening story of that time era

After I read the first few pages of THE LIFE SHE WAS GIVEN, I recognized a young adult story, which is no longer to my taste. I would have liked this book when I was 13 or 14, but now it bored me. I continued to read it only because it was my book group's choice for this month. Now I am glad I did because THE LIFE SHE WAS GIVEN turns out to have a lot more to it than a story of a little girl who was sold to the circus by her evil mother.

Two stories are going on here. One is Lilly’s and takes place in the 1930s. She's the one who was sold to the circus after being kept prisoner in an attic all her life. The other is Julia's story in the 1950s. She is solving the mystery of who Lilly was and what happened to her. Julia's story does have a twist near the end, which I probably should have seen coming.

So I did like THE LIFE SHE WAS GIVEN, after all, but it left me with too many questions, which I probably would have just accepted if I read it when I was 13. It was saved by breaking up Lilly's story with Julia's. This kept THE LIFE SHE WAS GIVEN interesting enough to keep me up at night. I call that a success.

(And, yes, elephants really do cry tears.)