Reviews

Her Privates We by William Boyd, Frederic Manning

exterus's review against another edition

dark reflective slow-paced

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

4.0

alexsiddall's review against another edition

5.0

A pretty astonishing account of life at the front in WW1. It surprises me that I didn't already know about this book, coming across it by chance. The insight into the interior world of men in the trenches is graphic and convincing, and feels so contemporary it's hard to credit that it was written in 1929. Highly recommended.

audreyknutson's review

3.0

I liked the story, it was just a v.hard book to read.

"Her Privates We" is a story of WWI camaraderie, similar to "All Quiet on the Western Front," but with the BEF during a few months in 1916 during the Somme. While there were parts with beautiful prose, most of it was pretty hard to get through and I found myself having to re-read sections just to understand wtf was going on.

saraaaa's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Alcohol, and War

Moderate: Gun violence

Minor: Grief

j_almat's review

challenging dark reflective tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

1.0

chaydgc's review

5.0

Irregular and brilliant. Tender, funny, and entirely unsentimental. Narrative is strung together from moment to acute moment, by long strands of repetitive and intensifying language (including significant and unusually effective inclusions and transcriptions of French and English dialects) and scenarios. Closely observed characters and a confusion of regimentals and sirs and glimpsed and half-remembered former sergeant-majors with a chronic deserter as a kind of central joker figure. Landscapes and still lifes--the sharp immediate and exclusive reality--and indeterminacy-- of lice, the moon, a sniper's nest, a woman's interest. Punctuated by rum and tea and beanos in local estaminets and dead sleep. Stylistically brilliant novel that portrays the individuality and the indifference of war without judgment.

Infuriating that this is Manning's only novel.

avid_d's review

4.0

It took me a good one third of the book to get in to the style and rhythm of the writing, but I was then hooked. Very powerful.