 Summary One night in the Ardennes Forest will change everything she holds dear... December, 1944, Malmedy, France. Annie Rawlings, an army nurse, spends her days and nights patching up the American boys who are fighting the Krauts. Soldiers so young they should be back home, playing baseball and flirting with girls on a Saturday night. Annie can't help but hate the Germans, especially when she hears about the atrocities at the Baugnez crossroads, where Nazis shot the American wounded. All Annie wants is for the war to stop long enough so she and Lieutenant Keith Mitchell can have their longed-for honeymoon in Paris over Christmas. But aircraft continue to roar overhead. Trucks, tanks, and personnel carriers rumble in the distance. More casualties pour in. Then, one snowy night, Annie and her friend Mouse drive an ambulance into the middle of no-man's-land on a desperate mission.... Positives The emotion in this book is what astounded me. This book grappled with some hard questions, made even harder by the fact that the characters were going through excrutiating losses. It was the type of thing that made me think of losses in my own life and to wonder the same questions about myself. Also, the author did a great job writing from a woman’s perspective. I really shouldn’t, but sometimes, when I see a male author has a female as a main character, I get a little skeptical. (To be fair, I’m sure there’s men out there that would look skeptically at my male main characters.) Honestly though, the author wrote her perspective better than some female authors. He also did a great job making me care about some characters in a very short amount of time. This isn’t a long book, but he set up the whole cast succinctly at the beginning, which meant when the action was underway and those characters were threatened, I sat up and took notice. His villain is the most annoying person ever. Just saying. (Annoying in a good way. He did all the things a villain should.) I’m honestly divided about the ending. Part of me wanted more closure. Part of me glanced skeptically at it. But most of me thinks it is just perfect—leaving a lot to my imagination. Negatives If you do find a copy of this book to read, please, please, PLEASE skip the prologue. In my opinion, it spoils the whole story and basically lets you know who makes it out alive and who doesn't. I wish it had been left in chronological order and that scene had not been in there until the end. Conclusion Dear Enemy is a worthwhile read. It touches the deep and painful places in our lives while also keeping me turning pages.
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 Summary A WWII novel of courage and conviction, based on the true experience of the men who fought fires as conscientious objectors and the women who fought prejudice to serve in the Women's Army Corps. Since the attack on Pearl Harbor, Gordon Hooper and his buddy Jack Armitage have stuck to their values as conscientious objectors. Much to their families' and country's chagrin, they volunteer as smokejumpers rather than enlisting, parachuting into and extinguishing raging wildfires in Oregon. But the number of winter blazes they're called to seems suspiciously high, and when an accident leaves Jack badly injured, Gordon realizes the facts don't add up. A member of the Women's Army Corps, Dorie Armitage has long been ashamed of her brother's pacifism, but she's shocked by news of his accident. Determined to find out why he was harmed, she arrives at the national forest under the guise of conducting an army report . . . and finds herself forced to work with Gordon. He believes it's wrong to lie; she's willing to do whatever it takes for justice to be done. As they search for clues, Gordon and Dorie must wrestle with their convictions about war and peace and decide what to do with the troubling secrets they discover. Positives THIS. BOOK. First off, the smokejumper thing is cool. I’ve never read a book with smokejumpers in it, and I didn’t know there were CO smokejumpers before this book either. The descriptions drew me in. Dorie is amazing. While some of her antics made this introvert cringe, I also liked her fire and her refusal to be kept down. Gordon was also fantastic in his own way, and I appreciated that a quiet, peace-loving character like him finally got his chance in the spotlight. I related a lot to his struggle to know when to step up and act and when to stand down and wait. The mystery definitely kept me going. I had no idea who it could be, all the ones I had figured out got knocked out one after the other. Never would have guessed the true culprit. I really appreciate how much she explores viewpoints in her story. She didn’t set one up as the good guy and the other as the bad guy. She took a look at ALL angles of an issue. She showed bad guys who believed good things and good guys who believed bad things. That alone would be enough for me to recommend this book. We need more books that make us think instead of hitting us over the head with morals. (Personal opinion, for what it’s worth. ;) ) She also didn't try to talk her main character out of his opinion. It was nice to see someone stand firm in the beliefs they know to be true, the things that matter, even as they grow and change. On the other hand, it was balanced out with the characters' willingness (or eventual willingness) to admit when and where they were wrong and make amends. Negatives None. Conclusion The Lines Between Us did not disappoint after her debut novel. It made me think about my own lines while it quickly made a line to my bookshelf. |
