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emotional hopeful inspiring medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

Interesting war take to consider.
emotional reflective medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: No

What a beautiful story! 4.5 stars! The storyline was enjoyable throughout, very easy to follow. Love triangles are sometimes obnoxious but I didn’t mind this one, it was sweet. It’s easy to fall in love with the characters and feel deeply for their struggles.

This is my favorite book of the year so far. It will be hard to top this.

Beatrix is a young girl who is sent to America during WWII to live with an American family. The mother, Nancy, is happy to finally have a girl to love. The father, Ethan, loves how smart Beatrix is and how she handles herself in such a difficult situation. The two children in the family are both boys. William is two years older than her, and Gerald is two years younger.

As the war rages on, Beatrix finds stability and an idyllic life, summering in Maine, and becoming a part of this new family. As the years go by, the children start to come of age, and Beatrix must go back to London when the war ends.

I loved almost everything about this book. It takes place from the 40s all the way to 1977. Even though it covers several Christmas holidays, it felt like the perfect summer book. The writing is excellent. Even though, I must say, I hate when writers don’t follow basic dialogue rules, I got used to the italics. I’m still giving this 5 stars because the characters and the story were everything!

During WW2, almost three million people were evacuated from high risk areas in England to rural areas, or oversees to countries like India, Australia , Canada and the United States. Most of the were children. This is the story of the fictional girl, Beatrix, whose parents made the heart wrenching decision to evacuate her to the United States to live with a foster family for the duration of the war to keep her safe and protect her childhood. This is about her journey growing up divided between the two families. The book spans from Beas early childhood to middle age.

To be fair, I tend to struggle with books that span almost an entire lifetime. I tend to get impatient while reading. This proved true with this book as well. But this was a well written story of two families intertwined through Bea. The characters were well developed and relationships well explored, but despite the deeply emotional storylines, I wasn’t invested enough for them to hit as hard as they as have. In my opinion, the ended came way to later in the story and some time periods were skimmed over so much that I got to the next chapter and literally exclaimed out loud “What!?” The time period that Bea lived in Maine, however was just the opposite where I am now ready to pack my bags. Overall a story that was slightly inconsistent, but still interesting enough to keep reading



“When you look back, it’s so easy to see the path that you’ve traveled. But looking forward, there are only dreams and fears.”


I thought it was OK. So many people love this book. I just didn’t connect somehow.
emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
emotional reflective medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated
adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Character
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes