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3.7 AVERAGE
3.7 AVERAGE
When I was a kid I read "Gift from the Sea" because my mom really liked it. I didn't enjoy it. It was way too girly and poetic for my taste. It's hard to reconcile the voice of the woman in "The Aviator's Wife" with the one in "Gift from the Sea". The woman in "Gift from the Sea" seemed aloof and not one to tell any secrets. In "The Aviator's Wife", Melanie Benjamin has Anne Morrow Lindbergh confessing to major dissatisfaction in her marriage and an eventual affair. I understand that this is historical fiction based on real life characters. Usually when I read historical fiction the characters are long dead. It is weird reading a fictional tale of someone that I knew of in my lifetime.
The story of Anne Morrow's marriage to America's hero did draw me in. I read this book very quickly because the subject matter fascinated me. I am now interested in reading more about Anne, Charles and the Lindbergh kidnapping. I suspect that this book started me on a reading journey that will keep me busy for quite a while.
The story of Anne Morrow's marriage to America's hero did draw me in. I read this book very quickly because the subject matter fascinated me. I am now interested in reading more about Anne, Charles and the Lindbergh kidnapping. I suspect that this book started me on a reading journey that will keep me busy for quite a while.
4.5 stars - Incredible. I really loved it.
Prior to reading this historical fiction novel, I knew very little about the Lindberghs; only that he was a record setting aviator and that they had a child whom had been kidnapped for ransom money...and I knew absolutely nothing about Charles' remarkable wife, Anne. I felt a bit better about this ignorance however, when I read in the author's note that many people today are only vaguely familiar with the Lindbergh story. If that is also the case for you, I recommend NOT familiarizing yourself with the details of their life prior to reading this novel, as it is more enjoyable when you do not already know how everything will end.
This is essentially a story about a fascinating but flawed (how human of him) hero with striking Asperger tendencies that finds Anne and recognizes she will make an effectual martial partner, and how Anne slowly grows and eventually steps out of a perpetual shadow (of her father, sister, husband) to become her own person. The story is compelling, informative, inspiring and heart breaking.
While surely it is a combination, you do wonder how much of Anne's transformation was due to a change in her marital relationship, vs a natural progression and change in one's priorities that comes with age, vs a reflection of an emerging cultural change towards women's equality.
Achieving the golden crown of a thought provoking HF novel, this one sent me on a google spree. Perhaps one of the most fascinating things I found out was that. As always, it was greatly appreciated that the author addressed at the end what was fiction vs fact. She also mentions in the author's note that she was more interested in the emotional side of the story vs a historical blow by blow account, and in that objective, she undoubtedly succeeded.
Anne Lindbergh:
Charles and Anne Lindbergh:
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Favorite Quote: Unlike men, women got less sintimental as we aged, I was discovering. We cried enough, when we were young; vessels overflowing with the tears of everyone we loved.
First Sentences: He is flying. Is this how I will remember him?
Prior to reading this historical fiction novel, I knew very little about the Lindberghs; only that he was a record setting aviator and that they had a child whom had been kidnapped for ransom money...and I knew absolutely nothing about Charles' remarkable wife, Anne. I felt a bit better about this ignorance however, when I read in the author's note that many people today are only vaguely familiar with the Lindbergh story. If that is also the case for you, I recommend NOT familiarizing yourself with the details of their life prior to reading this novel, as it is more enjoyable when you do not already know how everything will end.
This is essentially a story about a fascinating but flawed (how human of him) hero with striking Asperger tendencies that finds Anne and recognizes she will make an effectual martial partner, and how Anne slowly grows and eventually steps out of a perpetual shadow (of her father, sister, husband) to become her own person. The story is compelling, informative, inspiring and heart breaking.
While surely it is a combination, you do wonder how much of Anne's transformation was due to a change in her marital relationship, vs a natural progression and change in one's priorities that comes with age, vs a reflection of an emerging cultural change towards women's equality.
Achieving the golden crown of a thought provoking HF novel, this one sent me on a google spree. Perhaps one of the most fascinating things I found out was that
Spoiler
Lindbergh's illegitimate children did not know he had been their father until they were DNA tested in 2003Anne Lindbergh:
Charles and Anne Lindbergh:
-------------------------------------------
Favorite Quote: Unlike men, women got less sintimental as we aged, I was discovering. We cried enough, when we were young; vessels overflowing with the tears of everyone we loved.
First Sentences: He is flying. Is this how I will remember him?
2017 Popsugar challenge - A book recommended by another author
This book would have benefited from some additional editing...the pacing was slow. Not everything about the Lindberghs was interesting enough to be included here. The book was well-written, but it's hard to critique a book where I didn't like the main characters. Benjamin commented that when she told people she was writing about the Lindberghs, people would say, "I love the Lindbergs!" As it turns out, I DON'T love the Lindberghs.
A good look at the lives of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh from Anne's point of view. The daughter of the Ambassador to Mexico in the late 20s / early 30s, Anne Morrow was a middle child who felt like she was often overlooked, with an uneventful future ahead of her. Longing to make a mark on the world, Anne meets and later marries American hero Charles Lindbergh, not long after his epic journey from the US to Paris in The Spirit of St. Louis. At the time, she was smitten and ready for adventure. Adventure is what she got, in spades. What Anne did not anticipate was the rigid, often cold relationship with her new husband. There were good, loving times when the two would fly together, lost in the air away from the harsh realities that came with stardom. More often than not, though, life as the aviator's wife was a struggle where her fear of being overlooked was realized.
I want to think that Anne was a strong woman with gumption. Benjamin did a great job of presenting Anne as a young, naive woman who is often beaten down emotionally by a man who was overbearing. Throughout the book we see Anne transformed into her own woman with her own voice. It is a well researched book, sticking close to historical events, taking licenses on Anne's personality and character. I read this right after reading [a:A. Scott Berg|158063|A. Scott Berg|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_50x66-82093808bca726cb3249a493fbd3bd0f.png]'s biography on [b:Lindbergh|272507|Lindbergh|A. Scott Berg|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386920577s/272507.jpg|262763]. It was a nice follow up to see their lives from Anne's vantage point. She had to be a remarkable person for putting up with the larger than life character that was her husband.
I want to think that Anne was a strong woman with gumption. Benjamin did a great job of presenting Anne as a young, naive woman who is often beaten down emotionally by a man who was overbearing. Throughout the book we see Anne transformed into her own woman with her own voice. It is a well researched book, sticking close to historical events, taking licenses on Anne's personality and character. I read this right after reading [a:A. Scott Berg|158063|A. Scott Berg|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_50x66-82093808bca726cb3249a493fbd3bd0f.png]'s biography on [b:Lindbergh|272507|Lindbergh|A. Scott Berg|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386920577s/272507.jpg|262763]. It was a nice follow up to see their lives from Anne's vantage point. She had to be a remarkable person for putting up with the larger than life character that was her husband.
Great story about the life of Charles Linderbergh, and his life after his famous flight, through the eyes of his wife.
Sometimes there are books that you just read at the right time and they hit you perfectly. This was one of them. I loved the historical "memoir" of Anne Morrow Lindbergh. Telling of her struggles to be identified through something on her own merit not: Ambassador's daughter, aviator's wife, kidnapped boy's mother etc. It is told with a striking balance towards her husband, who can be closed off and challenging but supportive of her independence and briefly tender. Makes you want to go on and read more about the Lindbergh family.
I loved this book. Very well written. The characters were well-developed. I enjoyed the license the author took with wrapping emotion and inner thoughts around historical events. Other friends who read the book hated it because of who Anne was around Charles, but I thought it was a great telling of the story and very true to life in those times and who they were as real people. Excellent read.
Shy Anne Morrow is just a 21-year-old Smith College graduate, unsure of herself or her future when she meets Colonel Charles Lindbergh for the first time. Anne's father is the U.S. ambassador to Mexico and Lindbergh, fresh from his heroic trans-Atlantic flight to Paris, is at work spreading flight diplomacy. Shy Anne is sure Charles will be taken with her prettier, more outgoing sister, so she's amazed to find the hero that her whole country worships has taken an unexpected interest in her. Before she knows it, she's flying with the best pilot ever to grace the skies, and he chooses her to share his life.
Little does Anne suspect that the exciting beginning days of their romance, buoyed by their flights together mapping routes for the future of commercial flight will melt into years where she is stolen away from her children and family to appease her stubborn husband's demands. The couple's fame means they can't even go to the theatre without a disguise, and eventually marks them for tragedy when their firstborn son is kidnapped. The Aviator's Wife explores the couple's shared history from Anne's point of view and reveals the lesser known half of the famous couple.
The Aviator's Wife is a vividly imagined, nuanced portrait of one of America's best loved couples, a pair that was looked to for strength and guidance throughout pivotal parts of American history regardless of how normal or even flawed they might have been. In Benjamin's hands, Anne Morrow Lindbergh emerges from her famous husband's shadow as a woman who may easily have been stronger than the man himself, despite her often frustrating deference to her husband. The couple's story comes to life in Benjamin's perfectly-pitched first-person narration. I loved how Benjamin broke down a complicated relationship between two complicated individuals and made it fairly leap off the page from its uncertain beginnings to its heartrending end.
Additionally, seeing Charles Lindbergh through his imagined wife's eyes is similarly captivating. A stoic hero and a difficult man leaps off Benjamin's pages. He is stubborn and frustrating, better able to maneuver machines than deal with people, but he is also a man fiercely determined from a young age to do right by the American people who made him a hero, who is bent on protecting his wife and family, who believes his wife can do whatever she sets her mind to and urges her to become always more. Through Anne's eyes we find a man who was terribly flawed, but a man that Anne admired and loved just the same. Benjamin draws out the human being behind the myth and does it with such flair that we feel just as eager to love or to hate him as Anne herself might have.
In her author's note, Melanie Benjamin says, "That is what historical fiction does best, I think; it leaves the reader with a desire to know more," and so The Aviator's Wife has. I went into the book knowing relatively little about the "First Couple of the Air," and came out fully satisfied with Benjamin's beautifully told story, but also with a great curiosity to learn even more about Charles Lindbergh, and his wife who had the courage both to live in and finally to emerge from his shadow.
Little does Anne suspect that the exciting beginning days of their romance, buoyed by their flights together mapping routes for the future of commercial flight will melt into years where she is stolen away from her children and family to appease her stubborn husband's demands. The couple's fame means they can't even go to the theatre without a disguise, and eventually marks them for tragedy when their firstborn son is kidnapped. The Aviator's Wife explores the couple's shared history from Anne's point of view and reveals the lesser known half of the famous couple.
The Aviator's Wife is a vividly imagined, nuanced portrait of one of America's best loved couples, a pair that was looked to for strength and guidance throughout pivotal parts of American history regardless of how normal or even flawed they might have been. In Benjamin's hands, Anne Morrow Lindbergh emerges from her famous husband's shadow as a woman who may easily have been stronger than the man himself, despite her often frustrating deference to her husband. The couple's story comes to life in Benjamin's perfectly-pitched first-person narration. I loved how Benjamin broke down a complicated relationship between two complicated individuals and made it fairly leap off the page from its uncertain beginnings to its heartrending end.
Additionally, seeing Charles Lindbergh through his imagined wife's eyes is similarly captivating. A stoic hero and a difficult man leaps off Benjamin's pages. He is stubborn and frustrating, better able to maneuver machines than deal with people, but he is also a man fiercely determined from a young age to do right by the American people who made him a hero, who is bent on protecting his wife and family, who believes his wife can do whatever she sets her mind to and urges her to become always more. Through Anne's eyes we find a man who was terribly flawed, but a man that Anne admired and loved just the same. Benjamin draws out the human being behind the myth and does it with such flair that we feel just as eager to love or to hate him as Anne herself might have.
In her author's note, Melanie Benjamin says, "That is what historical fiction does best, I think; it leaves the reader with a desire to know more," and so The Aviator's Wife has. I went into the book knowing relatively little about the "First Couple of the Air," and came out fully satisfied with Benjamin's beautifully told story, but also with a great curiosity to learn even more about Charles Lindbergh, and his wife who had the courage both to live in and finally to emerge from his shadow.
I felt as though I was snooping into someone's life and did not belong there.