buzzgirl 's review for:

Regeneration by Pat Barker

4.0

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Should you stumble across this book - as I have done - then I implore you to read it. The book focuses on the lives of a handful of service men who are struggling to locate a graspable reality, after having borne witness to the most insidious trappings of trench warfare. They are being 'rehabilitated' to return to the front - in the face of the absurdity of this aim. Barker does a phenomenal job of detailing the psychological consequences of trench warfare, and speaks to the greater question of war without grandstanding. There is a real ease to her writing style which suitably offsets the confronting nature of its content.