After reading many of the mixed reviews of this book I was hesitant to read it. It has sat on my shelf since 2011. I finally picked it up and boy am I glad I did. This book grabbed me, pulled at my heartstrings and wouldn't let go. It is a WWII story that is quite different from those I've read before.
It is set in 1941 before the US has entered the war and focuses on three different American women. Two of the women live on Cape Cod and the third is a reporter who travels to London during The Blitz and then on to parts of Europe where she experiences and reports on the evacuation of the many Jews during this time. She tells stories of many individuals but she never knows how the story ends. She reports and then moves on to the next story. "A story like a snapshot is caught, held for a moment, then delivered. But the people in them go on and on. And what happens next? What happens?" Not knowing haunted her. The women living on Cape Cod are the postmistress who has a need to keep everything in order and a young insecure doctor's wife who is forced to find her way in the world alone. Their lives unfold throughout the novel slowly uniting the three of them.
This is a story that shows how war disrupts order and leaves loose threads that don't make sense individually but collectively they do. It is a beautifully written, thought-provoking novel.
My rating was knocked down by 1/2 star because I felt the ending, although decent, was rushed.
A favorite quote:
"Whatever is coming does not just come, as you say. It's helped by people willfully looking away. People who develop the habit of swallowing lies rather than the truth. The minute you start thinking something else, then you've stopped paying attention ---and paying attention is all we've got."
"If the world had paid more attention in 1939,..... maybe we wouldn't be sitting here in the dark, dodging bombs"
It is set in 1941 before the US has entered the war and focuses on three different American women. Two of the women live on Cape Cod and the third is a reporter who travels to London during The Blitz and then on to parts of Europe where she experiences and reports on the evacuation of the many Jews during this time. She tells stories of many individuals but she never knows how the story ends. She reports and then moves on to the next story. "A story like a snapshot is caught, held for a moment, then delivered. But the people in them go on and on. And what happens next? What happens?" Not knowing haunted her. The women living on Cape Cod are the postmistress who has a need to keep everything in order and a young insecure doctor's wife who is forced to find her way in the world alone. Their lives unfold throughout the novel slowly uniting the three of them.
This is a story that shows how war disrupts order and leaves loose threads that don't make sense individually but collectively they do. It is a beautifully written, thought-provoking novel.
My rating was knocked down by 1/2 star because I felt the ending, although decent, was rushed.
A favorite quote:
"Whatever is coming does not just come, as you say. It's helped by people willfully looking away. People who develop the habit of swallowing lies rather than the truth. The minute you start thinking something else, then you've stopped paying attention ---and paying attention is all we've got."
"If the world had paid more attention in 1939,..... maybe we wouldn't be sitting here in the dark, dodging bombs"
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