Weaving more than just WW2 history into the story, this story about friendship, love, loyalty, and overcoming fear connects several different historical events in a thoughtful way, breaking your heart and putting it back together again as if by magic.
This book seeks to shine a light on women who history would eschew as undesirable or "other" for various reason and lets their story be told with plausible insights into what was really going on. The authors clearly did their research and are very knowledgeable about that which they speak and present these women's stories in a thought-provoking, insightful, and sometimes eerie way.
I felt so many things with this book. While Fowler's more recent book, A Good Neighborhood, is completely different than this, her first book, both show her skill for stripping her characters down and laying bare all the things that makes them human, warts and all.
This story has spirit, humor, and verve, and lessons to be learned. It has the sweetness of a first romance, and the rollercoaster of emotions when faced with staying true to yourself or to the mold someone else is trying to put you into, even when itรขโฌโขs well-meaning, and maybe, just maybe, being brave enough to be yourself anyway.
