I'm giving Truevine 3 stars because I feel conflicted over it. Part of me is astonished, perhaps foolishly, at the cruelty of humanity. No matter how much I see or read, it's always a surprise. The other part of me is slightly annoyed that the overall story wasn't entirely about the brothers. In saying that though, from personal experience, finding enough information about one particular person that provides a full book can be difficult and sometimes padding is needed. Although information or detail is lacking, Macy's passion for the subject makes up for it. Truevine is worth reading because histories like this should be told.

Thank you for approving me for this title and I'm sorry it's taken me so long to read and review.

This is a story about George & Willie living in Virginia in the early 20th century. The boys are albino black children taken from their homes to be exploited in the world of freak shows and circuses.
The first thing I should mention is that parts of this make for quite distressing reading. Humans are not always kind to one another and the treatment of so called "freaks" was appalling & I found it quite emotional. The language used in this book does include quotes from people and literature of the time so is not always politically correct and quite abhorent to our modern ears. I have no objection to such quotes - if you are telling a story like this then you need to quote people of the time & not wrap it up. I should also point out that this is an American book so some of the phraseology is unusual. I found the use of the word "handicapped" in a modern sense quite difficult as this derisory term has mostly left British language but not so in America.
The book itself is very general and quite disjointed. If you actually take the information that is solely about George and Willie you'd get just a few chapters. The bulk of the book covers the social history of the time, the attitudes to black people in the Southern states of USA and the attitudes to disabled people.This is relevant to the lives of George and Willie but covers quite intense detail. Had the boys come from weathy white homes then they would not have been snatched and exploited in the way that they were.
The telling of this story is quite muddled. The author starts to follow one specific path and tends to wander off and get sidetracked. It would have made sense to either follow the boys story from beginning to end or follow the author's search for their story in chronological order. I think the author has tried to follow the stories but wanders off so much that it becoems difficult to tell exactly where we are. One minute you are discussing their parentage and the next being provided with details of how the town got its name followed by comments from modern descendants.
I found this book very interesting and was fascinated by the social history surrounding the circuses and freak shows of the day. I would have preferred more structure to the book which would have made it far easier to read and comprehend.
I received a free copy of this book via Netgalley.