I’ve just finished this book and … well, ugh. An important topic that could have been a riveting story, but in my opinion, very badly written. All the characters felt bland, their motivations flimsy, their characterisation stereotypical and lazy. Also, you call your book the women, but you make it all aboutthe various men your main character falls in love with at first sight and the things she learns from her affairs with them. It really bothered me.
The ending is totally unrealistic as well as utterly predictable. I guess I feel like it is a waste to wrap such an underrepresented point of view in a sticky-sweet love story wrapper. The book also seems to want to address trauma, but every time it occurs, a quick solution has to be found and the healing journey is effectively skipped over and portrayed as a continuous upward curve. It all just felt much too convenient and dumbed-down.
That said, I’m not American. I would be interested to hear if others experienced it totally differently and if it might be a cultural thing. I would have approached this subject matter in such a fundamentally different way.
by Calmly-Stressed
1 Comment
This book sounds right up my alley, I love writers like Lisa See, Philippa Gregory, Michelle Moran etc and I don’t know that much about the Vietnam war, but I’ve only seen negative reviews. Are her other books any good or is this in line with her other work?