Showing posts with label world war 1. Show all posts
Showing posts with label world war 1. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

5 Star Review! The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman


Title: The Light Between Oceans
Author: M.L. Stedman
Publisher: Scribner
Publication Date: July 31, 2012
Source: received as a gift from Cornelia at Small Hour Books

Summary from Goodreads

After four harrowing years on the Western Front, Tom Sherbourne returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, nearly half a day’s journey from the coast. To this isolated island, where the supply boat comes once a season and shore leaves are granted every other year at best, Tom brings a young, bold, and loving wife, Isabel. Years later, after two miscarriages and one stillbirth, the grieving Isabel hears a baby’s cries on the wind. A boat has washed up onshore carrying a dead man and a living baby. 

Tom, whose records as a lighthouse keeper are meticulous and whose moral principles have withstood a horrific war, wants to report the man and infant immediately. But Isabel has taken the tiny baby to her breast. Against Tom’s judgment, they claim her as their own and name her Lucy. When she is two, Tom and Isabel return to the mainland and are reminded that there are other people in the world. Their choice has devastated one of them.


My Review:

This book is AMAZING.  It is also really, really, really (really really) sad.  If you want to be completely absorbed by a beautifully-written, thought-provoking, thrilling novel, while also crying giant alligator tears, then do I have the book for you!

The absolute best thing about The Light Between Oceans is the moral ambiguity of each character's actions.  Tom and Isabel make a startling choice when the boat washes up at their home on Janus Rock.  Taken at face value, it's a choice that is illegal and unjust.  But as Tom and Isabel each explain their actions in their own way, readers can't help but see the possible good in what they've done.  Right and wrong are certainly not easily separable in this novel--not just for Tom and Isabel, but for many of the other characters that are brought into their complicated web.  As things begin to spiral out of their control, the couple must constantly re-evaluate their intentions, and what "right" really means.

That said...you're always waiting to see when that other shoe is going to drop, hence the nail-biting suspense.  This is a very emotional, heart-wrenching book, but Stedman writes it in a way that allows you to appreciate the writing, while simultaneously scrambling to get to the next chapter and see what's to come.  I find that many of the books I read with particularly beautiful prose are usually not also page-turners (in terms of plot action), but The Light Between Oceans bridges that gap.

I can't end this review without giving a thumbs-up to Stedman's use of setting, which plays a huge role in the atmosphere of this novel: both post-war Australia in general, and Janus Rock/the lighthouses in particular.  I've read very few books set in Australia, but this one combined the physical location with a rich history that really submerged me into the story.  Plus, the isolation of Tom and Isabel's life on Janus Rock was a key element to many of the major plot points, and that sense of remoteness was palpable in their everyday lives.

Five stars on Goodreads, and going on the favorites list.  I haven't been able to say that in a while!  This book was so much more than I expected, and I'll definitely be picking it up for re-reads in the future.

What was your last 5 star read?  Have you read any other good novels set in Australia?  (This is not a setting that I've visited in my fiction very often!)

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

SOS! Dead Wake by Erik Larson


Title: Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
Author: Erik Larson
Publisher: Crown
Publication Date: March 10, 2015
Source: ARC borrowed from Jen at The Relentless Reader

Summary from Goodreads

On May 1, 1915, a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York, bound for Liverpool, carrying a record number of children and infants. The passengers were anxious. Germany had declared the seas around Britain to be a war zone, and for months, its U-boats had brought terror to the North Atlantic. But the  Lusitania  was one of the era's great transatlantic "Greyhounds" and her captain, William Thomas Turner, placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack. He knew, moreover, that his ship--the fastest then in service--could outrun any threat. 

Germany, however, was determined to change the rules of the game, and Walther Schwieger, the captain of Unterseeboot-20, was happy to oblige. Meanwhile, an ultra-secret British intelligence unit tracked Schwieger's U-boat, but told no one. As U-20 and the  Lusitania  made their way toward Liverpool, an array of forces both grand and achingly small--hubris, a chance fog, a closely guarded secret, and more--all converged to produce one of the great disasters of history.


My Review:

I have a serious question, readers.

Why did I know everything about the sinking of the Titanic (at least, everything as dictated by Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet), but nearly nothing about the Lusitania until I read this GEM of a book?  Because I'm always first to admit that my knowledge of history is lacking, but really.  Hollywood has focused on the wrong subject here.

I have been striking it RICH with nonfiction lately, people!  And this might be the best one of late.  A few years ago, I read Larson's In the Garden of Beasts, and was impressed with his style of narrative nonfiction.  What that literary jargon means is that his nonfiction books read with the suspense and vivacity of a fiction novel.  All of his works are historically accurate (painstakingly so), but he formats them in a way that makes you feel like you're right in the moment with these historical figures, part of their conversations and triumphs and tragedies.

That absolutely holds true for Dead Wake as well.  I was on the edge of my seat while reading this book.  Larson outlines the entire week leading up to the Lusitania's sinking (oh yeah, spoiler alert: it gets sunk. By a German submarine), and even though you totally know what's coming, you'll find yourself praying that the darn thing stays afloat.  Because you KNOW these passengers.  Larson brings you up close and personal with the captain, the crew, the men, women, and (way too many) children on board, even the stowaways.  Plus, you get perspectives from the US (as President Wilson deals with some personal romantic issues while all this drama unfolds), the UK (as the British had far  more foreknowledge of this attack than you may think), and the German U-boat that actually perpetrated said sinking.  This gives you a clear illustration of the complex political forces at work during the attack as well.

In the end, you're left with a detailed, absorbing, and highly emotional account of one of the most devastating and politically-charged passenger boat disasters in history.

I can't say enough good things here.  Five stars all the way on this one.  Whether you're previously familiar with the Lusitania disaster or not, this is a nonfiction release that is not to be missed.

Ever been on a cruise, reader friends?  Did you pay attention during the lifeboat drills?  I bet you will after reading this.  Also: swimming lessons.
 
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