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A review by catbrigand
Purple Hearts by Michael Grant
3.0
Like the other books in the series, this is a really quick read despite the length because it’s engaging and fast-paced. I would actually argue that it’s too fast-paced...while the first book was basically training and Africa and the second was Italy, the third book is a whirlwind, a “how much of the European theater can we cram in one book” sort of thing: D-Day, Oradour, Hürtgen Forest, the Bulge, the liberation of Buchenwald, AND what happened to some of the characters afterward, all in the same length as the others. On one hand I can understand—all of those things were so abjectly horrifying, and they happened in quick succession, that to dwell on any one would have been too much.
On the other hand, I would have willingly taken fewer big events to spend more time with the characters. I wanted to know about Rainy. I would have liked to see the Pacific, and her brother. I would have liked to know about Strand (in several ways). And Frankie’s brother. The idea of including a short epilogue and character obituaries is brilliant, but I still had some questions. I disliked also the giving of narrative chapters to replacement GIs who were killed in the same chapter. I understand what I think Grant was trying to do, but it initially put me off that in an already crowded series the first chapter of this book was narrated by someone who promptly got killed.
This was a satisfactory conclusion and I loved seeing the character transformations but I do think it was the weakest of the trilogy.
On the other hand, I would have willingly taken fewer big events to spend more time with the characters. I wanted to know about Rainy. I would have liked to see the Pacific, and her brother. I would have liked to know about Strand (in several ways). And Frankie’s brother. The idea of including a short epilogue and character obituaries is brilliant, but I still had some questions. I disliked also the giving of narrative chapters to replacement GIs who were killed in the same chapter. I understand what I think Grant was trying to do, but it initially put me off that in an already crowded series the first chapter of this book was narrated by someone who promptly got killed.
This was a satisfactory conclusion and I loved seeing the character transformations but I do think it was the weakest of the trilogy.