jay_the_hippie 's review for:

A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

4.0

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This was a fine book. I liked the book. Okay, so maybe some of the quirks of Hemingway's writing style that wouldn't bother me if I were reading it to myself did occasionally strike me as worth parody when I was listening to it being read aloud from an audiobook, but I really did enjoy the story. I couldn't remember, when I picked the book up, if I had read it before or not; I'm now certain the answer is "not." I think that having just read a couple of non-fiction books about WWI made this book even better -- I felt like I understood more of the era in which the book was set -- but that isn't really necessary to understand the love story at the heart of this novel. I will say that the most pleasant surprise to me was how funny the characters were at times (e.g. the "Oh, I was hoping to have my leg amputated" scene). I don't remember getting that humor from a Hemingway book before. Maybe I was too young when I last read one of his books to get his humor. Maybe I'll have to read another of his books. I'm sure he has many other fine works. He's a fine author.