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steve1213's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
relaxing
sad
slow-paced
5.0
louloup_reads's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
slow-paced
4.0
cimorene1558's review against another edition
5.0
Excellent book. It's a good time to be reading about World War I, and this is a terrific book to add to your list. It's not all about the war, plenty of it is about growing up as an Edwardian, and about settling down to life after the war, and of course it's a pretty major feminist text in its way, but I found the war part most interesting and of course most heartbreaking.
kathrinpassig's review against another edition
5.0
Nicht vom blöden Verfilmungs-Cover abschrecken lassen: Das ist ein großartiges Buch über den Ersten Weltkrieg, Studium und Berufstätigkeit für Frauen, die Anfangsjahre des Völkerbundes und noch so einiges. Von allen autobiografischen Büchern aus dem Ersten Weltkrieg, die ich kenne (ok, nur fünf oder so), das intelligenteste, sympathischste und interessanteste.
wisha's review against another edition
5.0
To me provincialism stood, and stands, for the sum-total of all false values; it is the estimation of people for what they have, or pretend to have, and not for what they are. Artificial classifications, rigid lines of demarkation that bear no relation whatsoever to intrinsic merit, seem to belong to its very essence, while contempt for intelligence, suspicion and fear of independent thought, appear to be necessary passports to provincial popularity. Its mean, censorious spirit is typified for me by the local bank-manager's querulous little wife who took my mother, as a young married woman giving her first small dinner-party in Macclesfield, severely to task for having "mixed her sets."
In some of the larger provincial cities a rich and enterprising life does seem possible which is free from this carping pettiness... p.55
"It feels sad to be a woman!" I wrote in March 1913— the very month in which the "Cat and Mouse" Act was first introduced for the ingenious torment of the militants. "Men seem to have so much more choice as to what they are intended for."
The passage of time— or so, at least, I fondly believe— has changed my furious Buxton resentments into mellower and more balanced opinions, but probably no ambitious girl who has lived in a family which regards the subservience of women as part of the natural order of creation ever completely recovers from the bitterness of her early emotions. Perhaps it is just as well; women have still a long way to travel before their achievements are likely to be assessed without irrelevant sex considerations entering in to bias the judgment of the critic, and even their recent political successes are not yet so secure that those who profit by them can afford to dispense with the few acknowledged feminists who are still vigilant, and still walk warily along once forbidden paths. pg. 59
In some of the larger provincial cities a rich and enterprising life does seem possible which is free from this carping pettiness... p.55
"It feels sad to be a woman!" I wrote in March 1913— the very month in which the "Cat and Mouse" Act was first introduced for the ingenious torment of the militants. "Men seem to have so much more choice as to what they are intended for."
The passage of time— or so, at least, I fondly believe— has changed my furious Buxton resentments into mellower and more balanced opinions, but probably no ambitious girl who has lived in a family which regards the subservience of women as part of the natural order of creation ever completely recovers from the bitterness of her early emotions. Perhaps it is just as well; women have still a long way to travel before their achievements are likely to be assessed without irrelevant sex considerations entering in to bias the judgment of the critic, and even their recent political successes are not yet so secure that those who profit by them can afford to dispense with the few acknowledged feminists who are still vigilant, and still walk warily along once forbidden paths. pg. 59
christina_grace's review against another edition
5.0
This is the most devastatingly beautiful story I have ever had the pleasure of reading. Brittain's strength and truth in not only her life but her words, has gone down down in history. Her writing and poetry is timeless and resonates with anyone that has grieved or been left behind by tragedy. Beautiful story and life I will not soon forget.
neethuraghavan676's review against another edition
5.0
Really inspiring, but a heartbreaking one. Loved each and every moment lived through this story. Vera, I saw me in you, or I wanted to be you many times in my life.
sarah_reading_party's review against another edition
didn't finish this book. sooo detailed, but well written so maybe one day i'll come back to it!
walkingtheborder's review against another edition
5.0
One of the most astonishing books I read in my youth - and have re-read again and again. An extraordinary depiction of the horrors of war through one woman's life, loves and political awakening.