Reviews

Enemy Women by Paulette Jiles

tasmanian_bibliophile's review against another edition

3.0

 ‘There were only a few years left to her before she would have to marry and be closed up in a noisy house, trapped by domesticity.’ 

November 1864, Missouri. The American Civil War is raging and while the state of Missouri is officially Union, the southeastern part of the state is largely Confederate. Eighteen-year-old Adair Randolph Colley lives with her father and three siblings in the Ozark Mountain area of Missouri, where troops from both sides have inflicted terror and wrought havoc. The Colley family have survived by remaining neutral. But this ends when the Union Militia arrests Judge Marquis Colley on charges of treason and sets the Colley property on fire. The house is saved, but Adair and her younger sisters Savannah and Mary cannot remain there, and their brother John Lee flees into the hills. 

‘So at that time Adair and her little sisters had decided to walk north 120 miles to Iron Mountain where the Yankee garrison was, and it was a long cold walk.’ 

But Adair is arrested, denounced by a fellow traveller for helping the enemy. She is sent to a women’s prison in St Louis, and her health starts to fail. Adair and her interrogator, Major William Neumann, fall in love. Before he leaves his position at the prison for a combat role, Major Neumann provides Adair with the means to survive if she can escape, suggests that if she heads home, he will find her when the fighting is over. 

While we mainly travel with Adair as she struggles home, we also observe Major Neumann. At times it seems unlikely that either of them will survive, let alone make it to Adair’s home. 

This is a novel is more about the impact of the Civil War on non-combatants than on the battles. Ms Jiles opens chapters with excerpts from historical records, letters, and memoirs, immersing the reader in the period and providing the backdrop to Adair’s journey. 

This is the second of Ms Jiles’s novels I have read, and I picked it up to fill a particular niche in a reading challenge I am undertaking.  While I admired Adair’s courage and persistence, I would have liked to have seen more of Major Neumann. I finished the novel hoping for a brighter future for them both. 

Jennifer Cameron-Smith 

nightmare_nini's review against another edition

This is my second book by Paulette and I just don't like how she writes. The storyline isn't the proble  but the actual typography is. She doesn't use quotations when someone is speaking and my brain hates it.

clarrro's review against another edition

5.0

Loved this book so bad, I did not want it to end. Horses, war, women, love, nature and the poetry of her prose. yum.

ashley_w's review against another edition

adventurous emotional medium-paced

3.0

srash's review against another edition

4.0

Read after one of our library patrons recommended it to me. Jiles does a great job of vividly recreating Civil War-era Missouri and has a lovely, eloquent style. (Apparently, she was a published poet before writing this book, her prose debut). The main character was a bit odd and it took me some time to get used to her, but I ended up being quite fond of her. The journey scenes that bookend the story were the best, in my opinion.

llkendrick's review against another edition

4.0

I really liked this book. I loved that it covered a part of the Civil War that I wasn't aware of before - how women were wrongly accused of being spies, martial law eradicating laws and rights of the people, local militias, and how the war affected people in Missouri.

What I didn't like was the lack of quotations when people were speaking and the ending. I don't want to go into it anymore than that because I don't want to ruin it for anyone.

I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to read a Civil War historical fiction.

_n40m1_'s review against another edition

slow-paced

2.75

coralma's review against another edition

challenging informative sad slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

librarian_lisa_22's review against another edition

4.0

Jiles is a masterful writer. Her prose is exquisite. Each chapter begins with primary source narratives, which serve to yank the reader back into reality—the story itself reads like a dystopian novel with the civil war’s hopeless cruelty, but the excerpts remind the reader that it was all horribly true. This novel more than anything else I’ve read allowed me to glimpse what it must have been like for “regular” people during and after this must terrible war.

diziet's review against another edition

adventurous dark informative sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

This book reminded me of ‘Cold Mountain’ by Charles Frazier - and in comparison it pales. Which is perhaps unfair. There are some good bits once the narrative gets moving. But I never got true investment in characters like in ‘Cold Mountain’ (audio version of this book is great…)

I liked the quotes from historical nonfiction sources - but they could have been handled better in the audio version simply by using a different narrator. Sometimes it was confusing and I was like: Is this story? or quote? Especially in the beginning.

Like ‘Simon the Fiddler’ by the same author, this book had abrupt and unsatisfying ending for me. Some might like the open ended - endings. But for me it just seems like a bit lazy…

And now I want to listen to  ‘Cold Mountain’ again....