A review by ldixon
Sisters of the Great War by Suzanne Feldman

4.0

I was excited to read this book and the only drawback is that I don’t have the luxury of reading it again for the first time. I love a good historical fiction. This was a wonderful story about the bond between sisters as well as the bond between them and their lovers, but mostly it’s about the sisters Ruth and Elise. The two go over to Belgium less because they want to help but more because Ruth wants to get experience in her quest to become a doctor and Elise wants to support her sister. Elise joins a mobile ambulance unit once over there. They end up getting to see the horrors of war, and Feldman does not shy away from the details. She describes the smells and sounds of the hospitals in a way that makes you feel like you’re there in 1914. Feldman takes you through all four years of the war and shows the progression from the idealism that many had at the start to the cynicism by the end, and as a reader, I really connected with the characters. I understood why they went from feeling like they were there to help to feeling like everything they did was for nothing. Now, personally, I do feel like there was more dialogue than description and I’m just bit wild about that kind of structure. That said, I did get sucked into this novel after the first few chapters and finished it in a day (today actually!). Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a copy.