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A review by akaasia
Daughters of War by Dinah Jefferies
3.0
I had such high hopes for this book and it certainly had a lot of potential. The three sisters, Helene, Elise and Florence are living in occupied France in 1944, inhabiting a small farm house on the outskirts of a small village in Dordogne.
The sensible, eldest Helene, the rebellious middle child Elise and the innocent dreamer, youngest Florence. There are lots of vivid descriptions of the lush countryside and the idyllic surroundings but for me, the magic ends there.
The sisters face the horrors of war but the events read like Emotions for Dummies. When sensible Helene does something daring, the author spends far too much time pointing out that this is something Helene wouldn’t normally do. I get it, she’s branching out.
Men appear in and out of their lives and over a course mere hours these supposedly independent living ladies form such strong attachments to these men that they are suddenly incapable of thinking about anything else. The author really did the sisters a disservice by reducing them to bags of emotions that can only be soothed by the presence of a man.
Elise’s work with the Resistance is glossed over and played out outside the main narrative, she merely goes off on a mission and comes back with no more than a few words dedicated to her work.
All in all, this had so much promise but fell flat on its face.
ARC courtesy of NetGalley
The sensible, eldest Helene, the rebellious middle child Elise and the innocent dreamer, youngest Florence. There are lots of vivid descriptions of the lush countryside and the idyllic surroundings but for me, the magic ends there.
The sisters face the horrors of war but the events read like Emotions for Dummies. When sensible Helene does something daring, the author spends far too much time pointing out that this is something Helene wouldn’t normally do. I get it, she’s branching out.
Men appear in and out of their lives and over a course mere hours these supposedly independent living ladies form such strong attachments to these men that they are suddenly incapable of thinking about anything else. The author really did the sisters a disservice by reducing them to bags of emotions that can only be soothed by the presence of a man.
Elise’s work with the Resistance is glossed over and played out outside the main narrative, she merely goes off on a mission and comes back with no more than a few words dedicated to her work.
All in all, this had so much promise but fell flat on its face.
ARC courtesy of NetGalley