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3.83 AVERAGE
3.83 AVERAGE
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
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:
No
Une agréable surprise! Un roman qui se concentre sur le point de vue des femmes dans l’après Première Guerre Mondiale, avec des personnages complexes qui sont loin des clichés. Ça met en lumière de façon vraiment juste les conséquences de la guerre, les effets sur la santé mentale des hommes et la façon dont tout ça a affecté les femmes dans leurs vies. Pas joyeux, mais j’ai vraiment aimé!
DNF. I was lost and confused and didn’t want to read when given the opportunity, so on to the next!
Superbly written, thoroughly engrossing and beautifully moving. This was a completely compelling novel about the aftershock of WW1 which is something rarely written about but in the context of the three main characters is compelling and poignant.
Wake tells the story of three women living in the aftermath of World War I.
Ada is a mother grieving over the loss of her son Michael, and thinks of little else – pushing her husband away in the process.
Evelyn works in the army pension office keeping to herself after losing her fiancé. Her brother came home from the war changed in some way she can’t understand, nor can she understand why their relationship has grown so distant.
Hettie is a taxi dancer at a dance hall in London, where she meets many men with missing limbs. She longs for a different life and just might get the chance when she meets a mysterious stranger.
While it’s not normally a book I would have picked up in the bookstore, the cover and description intrigued me and I was excited to give it a read, but I had an incredibly hard time getting into the story. I was reading it as a break from homework and for the life of me couldn’t keep the girls straight in my head. Running through the novel is the story of the Unknown Soldier, who I think was supposed to relate to each of the women in their own way, but just fell flat. The writing was uneven, but I so wanted to like it; it had such a great premise! I wish Hope would have chosen one story to focus on. I think that would have cemented the emotional impact she was going for.
If you would have asked me 75 pages before the end I would’ve said that it was starting to look like a really good book, but then it just sort of ends before anything actually resolves. These women who have danced around each other are finally going to interact! Oh wait, no. They keep going on with their lives, which may or may not have changed over the course of the novel. Overall, this was an enjoyable book, but I was left wanting more. If Anna Hope writes another book someday, I’ll definitely give it a shot – this book was so close to brilliant!
I received my free review copy from Random House. Wake will be available February 11, 2014.
Ada is a mother grieving over the loss of her son Michael, and thinks of little else – pushing her husband away in the process.
Evelyn works in the army pension office keeping to herself after losing her fiancé. Her brother came home from the war changed in some way she can’t understand, nor can she understand why their relationship has grown so distant.
Hettie is a taxi dancer at a dance hall in London, where she meets many men with missing limbs. She longs for a different life and just might get the chance when she meets a mysterious stranger.
While it’s not normally a book I would have picked up in the bookstore, the cover and description intrigued me and I was excited to give it a read, but I had an incredibly hard time getting into the story. I was reading it as a break from homework and for the life of me couldn’t keep the girls straight in my head. Running through the novel is the story of the Unknown Soldier, who I think was supposed to relate to each of the women in their own way, but just fell flat. The writing was uneven, but I so wanted to like it; it had such a great premise! I wish Hope would have chosen one story to focus on. I think that would have cemented the emotional impact she was going for.
If you would have asked me 75 pages before the end I would’ve said that it was starting to look like a really good book, but then it just sort of ends before anything actually resolves. These women who have danced around each other are finally going to interact! Oh wait, no. They keep going on with their lives, which may or may not have changed over the course of the novel. Overall, this was an enjoyable book, but I was left wanting more. If Anna Hope writes another book someday, I’ll definitely give it a shot – this book was so close to brilliant!
I received my free review copy from Random House. Wake will be available February 11, 2014.
emotional
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Originally posted on: http://lauraslittlebookblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/wake-by-anna-hope.html
Told only over a mere five days whilst an unknown solider makes his way home from Northern France, we follow the lives of three women; Hettie, Evelyn and Ada. Each are dealing with life in London after the destruction and devastation of World War One. Life and everyone around them seems to be moving forward, but for Hettie, Evelyn and Ada, they cannot seem to do the same.
This is an incredible debut novel. The author manages to capture the raw emotions of each of the three women and it moved me deeply. I thought it was incredibly powerful and poignant and I just had to keep reading. It was incredibly well done how the author splits up the story between the three women and at the same time not lose the reader with the constant shifts between them. There is also the Unknown Soldiers journey that we follow over the five days alongside the three women's stories.
Anna Hope's writing was simple and straightforward, but at the same time profound. She manages to capture every single detail, every emotion and every sound. I felt at one with these women and could feel their emotions as if they were my own.
These women, although ordinary, represent all the women who had to deal with the aftermath of World War One. The War may have been over, but there was a lot of devastation left behind and Anna Hope has given them a voice which they did not have back then.
The last line of this story can lead your imagination any direction you choose, but for me it left me with hope that there is still a future for these three women. I would have liked to stay with these three women for longer as I feel like I got to know them and I want to know how their lives will turn out. I was sad to let them go.
Deeply moving and powerful. I already know this will be one of my top reads of 2014.
Told only over a mere five days whilst an unknown solider makes his way home from Northern France, we follow the lives of three women; Hettie, Evelyn and Ada. Each are dealing with life in London after the destruction and devastation of World War One. Life and everyone around them seems to be moving forward, but for Hettie, Evelyn and Ada, they cannot seem to do the same.
This is an incredible debut novel. The author manages to capture the raw emotions of each of the three women and it moved me deeply. I thought it was incredibly powerful and poignant and I just had to keep reading. It was incredibly well done how the author splits up the story between the three women and at the same time not lose the reader with the constant shifts between them. There is also the Unknown Soldiers journey that we follow over the five days alongside the three women's stories.
Anna Hope's writing was simple and straightforward, but at the same time profound. She manages to capture every single detail, every emotion and every sound. I felt at one with these women and could feel their emotions as if they were my own.
These women, although ordinary, represent all the women who had to deal with the aftermath of World War One. The War may have been over, but there was a lot of devastation left behind and Anna Hope has given them a voice which they did not have back then.
The last line of this story can lead your imagination any direction you choose, but for me it left me with hope that there is still a future for these three women. I would have liked to stay with these three women for longer as I feel like I got to know them and I want to know how their lives will turn out. I was sad to let them go.
Deeply moving and powerful. I already know this will be one of my top reads of 2014.
A beautiful historical fiction novel about the impact WWI had on women at home. I enjoyed how the narration changed between the 3 women and how all of their stories were somehow linked.
World War I tends to get short shrift in fiction. It was not the war to end all wars. Its’ battles did not span the globe, and it did not involve worldwide alliances and partnerships. The battles themselves involved a one-war-only battle strategy that everyone agrees was an unmitigated failure that caused more harm than good. Finally, nothing was truly accomplished at the end of the war. All of these reasons make it the war that tends to be ignored.
While Wake does not occur during the war itself, it does a brilliant job of highlighting the lasting damage it did to the soldiers’ mental states and a country’s collective psyche. Evelyn’s job within the Pensions Exchange emphasizes the trauma these soldiers suffered and how unprepared the British government and economy was to help them readjust into society. Hettie’s job as a dance instructor is a symbol for a country trying to recover some of its former innocence and/or forget the horrors of war regardless of where one spent those war years. Meanwhile, Ada stands in for all mothers and sweethearts who lost loved ones. As their stories blend and merge, it becomes a fascinating look at how small the world really is and how one tiny action can have such a large impact on others. Connections are everywhere, and as the three women prove, one is never alone in one’s pain and suffering.
Readers who dislike ambiguous endings should steer clear, as Wake ends abruptly – very abruptly, as in the middle of a sentence. On the one hand, it is a brilliant fade to allow readers to provide their own endings to the various strands of the story. On the other hand, it is so sudden an ending that one may question whether it is poor editing or a publishing error. Readers who can overcome the lack of closure will appreciate the placement of power within the readers’ hands. Those who cannot do so would do well to avoid the book altogether.
Wake fills a gap in historical fiction by exposing the collective grief and trauma of a country recovering from a war. The fact that it occurs a few years after the war’s end is particularly telling because it shows just how difficult it was for everyone to adjust to peacetime and how long the adjustment period really was. The number of soldiers out of work or completely unable to work due to shell shock or injury is astounding. The three women are the perfect allegory for the British people and British economy, struggling to make ends meet and adjust to life after seeing first-hand the worst thing people can ever experience.
Wake is an emotional experience as well as an educational one. The mood is appropriately somber with a hint of desperation that strikes at a reader’s emotional core. The individual stories of the three women are intimate without making a reader feel unhealthily voyeuristic, while the characters themselves are wonderfully three-dimensional and fully developed. Historical fiction fans would be remiss to bypass Wake with its wonderful prose and strong emotions.
While Wake does not occur during the war itself, it does a brilliant job of highlighting the lasting damage it did to the soldiers’ mental states and a country’s collective psyche. Evelyn’s job within the Pensions Exchange emphasizes the trauma these soldiers suffered and how unprepared the British government and economy was to help them readjust into society. Hettie’s job as a dance instructor is a symbol for a country trying to recover some of its former innocence and/or forget the horrors of war regardless of where one spent those war years. Meanwhile, Ada stands in for all mothers and sweethearts who lost loved ones. As their stories blend and merge, it becomes a fascinating look at how small the world really is and how one tiny action can have such a large impact on others. Connections are everywhere, and as the three women prove, one is never alone in one’s pain and suffering.
Readers who dislike ambiguous endings should steer clear, as Wake ends abruptly – very abruptly, as in the middle of a sentence. On the one hand, it is a brilliant fade to allow readers to provide their own endings to the various strands of the story. On the other hand, it is so sudden an ending that one may question whether it is poor editing or a publishing error. Readers who can overcome the lack of closure will appreciate the placement of power within the readers’ hands. Those who cannot do so would do well to avoid the book altogether.
Wake fills a gap in historical fiction by exposing the collective grief and trauma of a country recovering from a war. The fact that it occurs a few years after the war’s end is particularly telling because it shows just how difficult it was for everyone to adjust to peacetime and how long the adjustment period really was. The number of soldiers out of work or completely unable to work due to shell shock or injury is astounding. The three women are the perfect allegory for the British people and British economy, struggling to make ends meet and adjust to life after seeing first-hand the worst thing people can ever experience.
Wake is an emotional experience as well as an educational one. The mood is appropriately somber with a hint of desperation that strikes at a reader’s emotional core. The individual stories of the three women are intimate without making a reader feel unhealthily voyeuristic, while the characters themselves are wonderfully three-dimensional and fully developed. Historical fiction fans would be remiss to bypass Wake with its wonderful prose and strong emotions.
I liked the way this was written, the characters and their relationships. Will be checking out more of her work.