Reviews with content warning for Antisemitism - In Memoriam

I loved this book! As queer fiction set against the backdrop of WWI goes, there was so much hope and love to be found in the writing. It is as much a love story as it is about the war, and personally I loved that it didn't focus too heavily on homophobia or what I feel may have been slightly unrealistic attitudes to gay relationships at that time in British history. I also thought the ending was perfect and tragic.

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sianfh's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad 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? Yes

5.0

Thank you to Netgalley and Knopf Publishing for this e-ARC!

I’ve written and rewritten a review of this book a handful of times yet I still can’t quite capture exactly what lies in my chest upon finishing it. In Memoriam, a historical fiction novel that takes place during the First World War, follows Sidney Ellwood and Henry Gaunt from Sixth Form, still bashful teenagers, to wounded soldiers ravaged by war, masquerading as men. You’re told about the War in History classes, gruesome stories about gas masks failing and trench foot, but it all seemed so far removed. Here, Alice Winn manages to put you right in the centre of No Man’s Land, with a heart that beats in fear and a mouth that dries up at the thought of the horrors that a generation of young men were lost to. Through it all, there is Gaunt and Ellwood, an invisible string binding them together, a constant even when they’re apart. At times my breath was taken away by the way their story is told. At a time of censorship their love was bold and loud. Ellwood’s love of poetry is woven through the storyline, even if at one point that seems to disappear, and I loved the references to Rupert Brooke and Wilfred Owen, poets who lived and experienced the stories we’re hearing here. It is quite plain the level of research that went into the factual element of this novel. This perhaps is an important feat of historical literature as well as queer literature. I’ll be thinking of this for some time.

Content Warnings

mint_the_muffin's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for providing an e-ARC for an honest review.

There's probably a poem for this feeling inside me out there somewhere but not in my head, which is utterly empty and numb.

This book. What a masterpiece.

I've read many fictions about wars. Depending on the author's prose and the theme of the story, the same war can be portrayed with different focuses and in different ways. But I've never read a version of WWI that is as bleak, gloomy, heart-wrenching, and horrific as this book. In this story, we follow a bunch of English boys in an elite boarding school. When we first met them, they were spoiled, annoying, boyishly gallant, and so, so full of life. They spent their days squandering money, hitting each other, writing bad poems, and their greatest agony in life was catching feeling for their friend. After all, homosexuality was still illegal in England at the time. Still, to the boys, England was the best nation in the world that should rightfully colonize everyone else, and these boys just can't wait to be in the front line, fighting for their country, becoming the heroes they only ever read about in classics and romantic poems.

And then, one-by-one, they eventually enlisted, and what followed was the kind of horror unlike anything they ever imagined. The story did not shy away from the most graphic depiction of any kinds of violence. The prose is at times very matter-of-fact and dry, which somehow makes the truth more truthful and hits that much harder. Alice Winn is a genius at using different types of proses and formats to construct the roller coaster of emotions in this story. The juxtaposition between the straightforward facts and the flowery poems gave me whiplash. The meaningful switches from standard narration to letters to newsletter managed to condition me to hold my breath in dread. It was frightfully immersive to look through the list of the deceased and wounded with one eye closed, praying that the characters you care for had not died.

Despite the immersive setting, this book is very character-driven. And it's a testament to the author's amazing skill when every character she crafted broke my heart one way or another. The protagonists, Henry Gaunt and Sidney Ellwood, had been best friends and mutually pining after each other for so many years. Their relationship, like everything else, is affected by the war and their traumas. Their emotions are ugly, their yearning raw, and their love seemingly pointless. But theirs is a love story amidst hatred, of gentleness amidst violence. It is all the ugliness that makes their story beautiful. I love them both so, so much.

I don't know how to talk about the supporting characters without having a breakdown. This book didn't turn me into a sobbing mess, but it carved a total void in my heart where some characters - even those that only appears for a half chapter - had been alive and then gone. It's the first time I understand that, if I can still cry because of a book, then I'm quite alright, because when I'm truly devastated, there's only silence, which was what happened when I turned the last page of this book. The war and the characters have all felt so real, so close. I don't think I've fully come out of it yet. And I don't know if I ever will.

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