j_h_ 's review for:

The Lies We Leave Behind by Noelle Salazar

4.5

adventurous emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense

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This was a lovely book with multiple nuances throughout. Covering decades, it follows the life of Katie, working as a military nurse during WWII. Overtly, Katie appears to be straightforward, an American woman wanting to do something practical in the war effort. It wasn't an easy job but she falls in love with it, and her fellow nurses become her family, replacing her painful past with her real but difficult and scary family. I read Kristen Hannah's The Women which also explores the same rarely spoken about women's sacrifice during the drama of the second world War. The stories are different but there was a basic strand that resonated through both stories. I think this tale was a weirdly more gentle one. Both were worthwhile reading.