Date Started: 9/29/11
Date Finished: 10/2/11
One-Word Summary: Boring
This was another one from the mom box-o-books that I mentioned ages ago. I had actually seen this book before so it was more legit than some of the others. Unfortunately legit =/= (does not equal) good. I was really expecting more from this book.
The book is set primarily in World War II, before Pearl Harbor, during that time when the US was still isolated from the violence gripping Europe and Russia. The narrator is a young, apparently attractive, Frankie who is on the front lines, radio reporting from the Blitz in London. However, we have alternating narrators in Iris, the postmaster, and Emma, the doctor's wife, who both live in Franklin. The introduction seems to imply that letters are not delivered during the war, and yet really, the whole thing boils down to one letter that Emma's husband Will, never mailed before dying as a result of a traffic accident in London (where he goes as some sort of penance after he loses a patient). What I thought would be a mystery was more of a character story that doesn't go deep enough to make me connect with any of them.
There is a lot of jumping around and characters make brief appearances only to die or not be mentioned again. The dialogue and thoughts of the narrators are so jumpy it just became annoying after a while. And there is NO resolution to any of it. Iris finally finds love only to have Harry die (of a heart attack?) as he sees a U-boat off shore and rings the alarm, thus confirming his beliefs that they should all be looking out? We never find out what Frankie did with all of the recordings she made of the people trying to escape Europe (the train trip she went on and all of the atrocities she saw, with the recordings as the only surviving record of what was happening to Jews in Europe). What happens to Emma and her unborn baby? And did Frankie ever go back to reporting?
This was one of those books that I just wanted to finish so I could move on to the next. One more mom book to get through and it looks even worse. Stay tuned...!
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