A review by braella
The Spitfire Girls by Soraya M. Lane

2.0

I picked up this book with a lot of hope and a true desire to enjoy the story told within its pages. Instead, I was filled with constant frustration. I understand that this was a work of fiction, but what the author has done here just feels wrong. Soraya Lane replaced Jacqueline Cochran (founder of WASP) Pauline Gower (one of the original eight ATA pilots), Maureen Dunlop (pilot whose face graced the cover of Picture Post), Lettice Curtis (first woman to fly a Halifax), and Mary Ellis (pilot seconded to the RAF) with the characters of Elizabeth Dunlop, May Jones, and Ruby Sanders. Why were these very real, very recognizable, and very famous women and their accomplishments replaced with fictional versions? The afterword proves that the author knows who these amazing women were, but she provides zero reason for taking large portions of their well-documented lives and slapping a fictional name on their achievements. Why not invent entirely new characters who would have their own entirely new adventures (e.g., "The Flight Girls")? And why claim that ATA had a single casualty, thus erasing the brave women who gave their lives in service? This could have been a good book. But instead it simply feels like a cheap, lazy copy of actual history.