Keeping Lucy

Dover, Massachusetts, 1969. Ginny Richardson's heart was torn open when her baby girl, Lucy, born with Down Syndrome, was taken from her. Under pressure from his powerful family, her husband, Ab, sent Lucy away to Willowridge, a special school for the “feeble-minded." Ab tried to convince Ginny it was for the best. That they should grieve for their daughter as though she were dead. That they should try to move on.

But two years later, when Ginny's best friend, Marsha, shows her a series of articles exposing Willowridge as a hell-on-earth--its squalid hallways filled with neglected children--she knows she can't leave her daughter there. With Ginny's six-year-old son in tow, Ginny and Marsha drive to the school to see Lucy for themselves. What they find sets their course on a heart-racing journey across state lines—turning Ginny into a fugitive.

For the first time, Ginny must test her own strength and face the world head-on as she fights Ab and his domineering father for the right to keep Lucy. Racing from Massachusetts to the beaches of Atlantic City, through the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia to a roadside mermaid show in Florida, Keeping Lucy is a searing portrait of just how far a mother’s love can take her.

The first 40 pages of this book absolutely wrecked me!  The image of Lucy being taken away from her mother, Ginny, and then going inside Willowridge will stay with me for a long time.  To think that a place (or places) like this ever existed chills me to the bone.  From there we follow Ginny and Marsha's road trip to protecting Lucy at all costs.  While I enjoyed the road trip, I wanted more of a fight against the school.  I understood why she left.  It was a different day and age than we are in today, but I wanted to see her stand up against them more than I wanted to read about her running away.  However, it was very endearing to experience the relationship develop between Ginny and Lucy.  The author writes in such a relatable way that it really stood out.  The ending felt rushed and tied up a little too nicely in my opinion.  Overall a very solid novel and I look forward to picking up more books by T. Greenwood in the future.   

  

       * I received this book from the author/publisher in exchange for an honest review *