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RUMORS PEACE
"One of those deceptively guileless novels, like A Member of the Wedding and To Kill a Mockingbird , that sees more than it lets on." — New York Times Book Review “A book of acute insight and delicious humor. . . . Absorbing and poignant and full of difficult truth.” —Rosellen Brown, New York Magazine Though radio broadcasts grow more harrowing every day, and soon, swastika-marked envelopes begin to arrive from cousins overseas, but the fighting in Europe still seems far away from the idyllic California home of ten-year-old tomboy Suse Hansen. But after Pearl Harbor, everything changes. In Ella Leffland’s beautifully wrought story of a young girl’s coming of age during WWII, the fighting in Europe looms behind the tranquility of family, friends, and neighbors—until the darkness of the war becomes suddenly, irrevocably real.
400 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1979
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 53 reviews
July 28, 2014
Every once in a while, we can be pleasantly surprised – no, more than ‘pleasantly surprised’; we can be downright astonished!
I picked up a copy of Ella Leffland’s Rumors of Peace on a stoop here in Brooklyn one afternoon last summer, read “coming-of-age story” on the back cover, and thought it might make for a good little read for my daughter. This summer, I decided to first read it myself so as not to waste my daughter’s time if the book turned out to be some silly kind of YA Fiction.
A waste of time? Nothing could be further from the truth! If the name of Ella Leffland wasn’t already as well-known to me as that of Carson McCullers, Flannery O’Connor or Joyce Carol Oates, I consider that to be my failing.
Ms. Leffland’s prose is immaculate – and her character, Helen Maria (not the protagonist, Suze, but rather the protagonist’s older sister), has to rank right up there alongside Uriah Heep, Frankie Addams, Atticus Finch, Captain Ahab, and Don Quixote for being (to me at least) among the most colorful and memorable in literature.
At the same time, I found Ms. Leffland’s use of headlines (about the progress of WWII) as a literary device to be every bit as effective as John Dos Passos’s use of Newsreels in his U. S. A. Trilogy.
If I’ve always considered Carson McCullers’s Member of the Wedding to be the most accomplished coming-of-age story in American literature – and on a par with Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield and Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones in British literature – I now have to say that Ella Leffland’s Rumors of Peace figures right alongside it. Yes, it’s that good!
One of the more impressive aspects of Rumors of Peace is Ms. Leffland’s ability to show, in both thought and action, Suze’s growth – and to illustrate that growth in perfect syncopation with world events right up to and including the dropping of the A-Bomb on Hiroshima. While I realize that this is the objective of any coming-of-age story worth its salt – or at least its ink – I can’t recall ever having seen it done so effectively.
In any case, I have to wonder in this, the year 2014 (and beyond): will anyone still possess comparable powers of observation for things both near and far? In this, the year 2014 (and beyond), with most people – whether on foot or in some other mode of transportation – plugged in digitally, will anyone still be able to observe and describe the world beyond his or her own digital navel?
Somehow, I doubt it.
RRB
07/28/14
Brooklyn, NY
I picked up a copy of Ella Leffland’s Rumors of Peace on a stoop here in Brooklyn one afternoon last summer, read “coming-of-age story” on the back cover, and thought it might make for a good little read for my daughter. This summer, I decided to first read it myself so as not to waste my daughter’s time if the book turned out to be some silly kind of YA Fiction.
A waste of time? Nothing could be further from the truth! If the name of Ella Leffland wasn’t already as well-known to me as that of Carson McCullers, Flannery O’Connor or Joyce Carol Oates, I consider that to be my failing.
Ms. Leffland’s prose is immaculate – and her character, Helen Maria (not the protagonist, Suze, but rather the protagonist’s older sister), has to rank right up there alongside Uriah Heep, Frankie Addams, Atticus Finch, Captain Ahab, and Don Quixote for being (to me at least) among the most colorful and memorable in literature.
At the same time, I found Ms. Leffland’s use of headlines (about the progress of WWII) as a literary device to be every bit as effective as John Dos Passos’s use of Newsreels in his U. S. A. Trilogy.
If I’ve always considered Carson McCullers’s Member of the Wedding to be the most accomplished coming-of-age story in American literature – and on a par with Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield and Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones in British literature – I now have to say that Ella Leffland’s Rumors of Peace figures right alongside it. Yes, it’s that good!
One of the more impressive aspects of Rumors of Peace is Ms. Leffland’s ability to show, in both thought and action, Suze’s growth – and to illustrate that growth in perfect syncopation with world events right up to and including the dropping of the A-Bomb on Hiroshima. While I realize that this is the objective of any coming-of-age story worth its salt – or at least its ink – I can’t recall ever having seen it done so effectively.
In any case, I have to wonder in this, the year 2014 (and beyond): will anyone still possess comparable powers of observation for things both near and far? In this, the year 2014 (and beyond), with most people – whether on foot or in some other mode of transportation – plugged in digitally, will anyone still be able to observe and describe the world beyond his or her own digital navel?
Somehow, I doubt it.
RRB
07/28/14
Brooklyn, NY
August 27, 2018
Leffland is a highly regarded novelist of slender output -- five novels in thirty years, and nothing at all in more than a decade. This one, her third, has recently been republished (and marketed as a “classic”), but I discoverd it when it first appeared and I remember enjoying it very much, so when I came across a mention of he book in another review, I decided it was time for a re-read.
It’s late 1941 and Suse Hansen is just about to turn eleven when the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. The child of Danish immigrants, she lives in a small industrial town on the east side of San Francisco Bay (as did the author), so fears of bombing or an invasion are very real, and Suse, not surprisingly, becomes terrified by the possibility. Her fear leads her to develop a reflexive hatred for all things Japanese; the Nisei of northern California should all be rounded up and shot, as far as she’s concerned. But life goes on, the invasion doesn’t come, her older sister is getting ready to go off to an art institute in San Francisco, and her older brother is working in a shoe store while playing drums and thinking about becoming an architect, and Suse gradually slides back into her routines -- but, being a literalist for whom everything is black-and-white, she doesn’t abandon her newly acquired hatred.
She meets a private school rejectee named Peggy and they soon become best friends. And Peggy has a slightly older sister named Helen Maria who is something of a genius, being already a student at Berkeley, fluent in several languages, and intent on pursuing her studies at Oxford. As the war progresses, so does Suse, more or less. She’s not at all stupid -- her favorite book is Madame Bovary -- but she gets terrible grades in school because she doesn’t care; all her best friends are in the “dumbbell class.” By modern standards, she’s an extremely late bloomer physically, but when sexual feelings begin to appear, in the form of a series of crushes on male teachers, she deals with it all in a logical and systematic way. And she gradually becomes less close to Peggy, who has strong social ambitions, and more so to Helen Maria, who encourages her to study and to think. And then, on a visit to Berkeley, she meets Helen Maria’s semi-boyfriend, Egon, in his mid-20s, a German Jewish refugee from Berlin, and he becomes the secret passion of her life. Even though she thinks he must be the enemy, being German, because she apparently has never heard the word “Jew” except for a vague memory from Sunday School. (Kristallnacht must have something to do with Christmas, right?)
But, while Suse regularly embarrasses herself through her sometimes appalling ignorance, she never loses her balance or her sense. And, by the end of the story, as she digests the news of Hiroshima in a very different frame of mind than when she heard about Pearl Harbor, only four years before, it’s clear she’s on her way to a very interesting adulthood.
Leffland’s narrative style is often lyrical and engaging and her grasp of the minutiae of adolescence is profound. (We all have gone through it but few writers are capable of remembering it for us so clearly.) And her treatment of her characters is first-rate. My favorite character, I think, is actually Helen Maria, who deals resourcefully with the impediments history has placed in her way as she tries to escape to England, and whose relationships with both her sister and with Suse are very convincingly depicted. I should also note that while I’m younger than Suse, I actually was born during the war, so perhaps I can relate to the thought processes and concerns of the time better than much younger readers to whom the 1940s are as foreign and ancient as the Periclean Greece that absorbs Helen Maria.
But I do have a problem with the unavoidable time scale. I simply wasn’t convinced that Suse could go off to a night-long party in a university rooming house and dance with international students and, apparently, be accepted as one of the group when she’s still only fourteen. Yes, the author was constrained by the span of the war, and the problem might have been mitigated if the protagonist had been about four years older throughout, . . . but that would have been a different story.
It’s late 1941 and Suse Hansen is just about to turn eleven when the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. The child of Danish immigrants, she lives in a small industrial town on the east side of San Francisco Bay (as did the author), so fears of bombing or an invasion are very real, and Suse, not surprisingly, becomes terrified by the possibility. Her fear leads her to develop a reflexive hatred for all things Japanese; the Nisei of northern California should all be rounded up and shot, as far as she’s concerned. But life goes on, the invasion doesn’t come, her older sister is getting ready to go off to an art institute in San Francisco, and her older brother is working in a shoe store while playing drums and thinking about becoming an architect, and Suse gradually slides back into her routines -- but, being a literalist for whom everything is black-and-white, she doesn’t abandon her newly acquired hatred.
She meets a private school rejectee named Peggy and they soon become best friends. And Peggy has a slightly older sister named Helen Maria who is something of a genius, being already a student at Berkeley, fluent in several languages, and intent on pursuing her studies at Oxford. As the war progresses, so does Suse, more or less. She’s not at all stupid -- her favorite book is Madame Bovary -- but she gets terrible grades in school because she doesn’t care; all her best friends are in the “dumbbell class.” By modern standards, she’s an extremely late bloomer physically, but when sexual feelings begin to appear, in the form of a series of crushes on male teachers, she deals with it all in a logical and systematic way. And she gradually becomes less close to Peggy, who has strong social ambitions, and more so to Helen Maria, who encourages her to study and to think. And then, on a visit to Berkeley, she meets Helen Maria’s semi-boyfriend, Egon, in his mid-20s, a German Jewish refugee from Berlin, and he becomes the secret passion of her life. Even though she thinks he must be the enemy, being German, because she apparently has never heard the word “Jew” except for a vague memory from Sunday School. (Kristallnacht must have something to do with Christmas, right?)
But, while Suse regularly embarrasses herself through her sometimes appalling ignorance, she never loses her balance or her sense. And, by the end of the story, as she digests the news of Hiroshima in a very different frame of mind than when she heard about Pearl Harbor, only four years before, it’s clear she’s on her way to a very interesting adulthood.
Leffland’s narrative style is often lyrical and engaging and her grasp of the minutiae of adolescence is profound. (We all have gone through it but few writers are capable of remembering it for us so clearly.) And her treatment of her characters is first-rate. My favorite character, I think, is actually Helen Maria, who deals resourcefully with the impediments history has placed in her way as she tries to escape to England, and whose relationships with both her sister and with Suse are very convincingly depicted. I should also note that while I’m younger than Suse, I actually was born during the war, so perhaps I can relate to the thought processes and concerns of the time better than much younger readers to whom the 1940s are as foreign and ancient as the Periclean Greece that absorbs Helen Maria.
But I do have a problem with the unavoidable time scale. I simply wasn’t convinced that Suse could go off to a night-long party in a university rooming house and dance with international students and, apparently, be accepted as one of the group when she’s still only fourteen. Yes, the author was constrained by the span of the war, and the problem might have been mitigated if the protagonist had been about four years older throughout, . . . but that would have been a different story.
December 11, 2016
I learned more about WWII reading this book than I ever had in school. Great coming of age story set in a time of a wicked war. Great story...
March 10, 2013
This book is considered a classic, for good reason. Recently republished, the story of an adolescent girl growing up in California during World War II follows the anxious events of her young life and their resolution at the same time it narrates, via short historical newspaper clippings, the conflict and eventual end of the war's hostilities. The quality of Leffland's fiction that brings me back again and again to her work is her prose. She never moves forward until she has the exact right words to express her thoughts. And those expressions are always specific, accurate, and original. For me, she evokes life itself.
October 29, 2020
The coming of age of a young girl in the northern California town of Martinez -- renamed "Mendoza" in the book -- growing up in the shadow of World War-II, starting with the day Pearl Harbor was attacked and ends on VJ Day. the distant war effecting her life. Leffland weaves history of homefront California into her tale (including the events of July 17, 1944, a reference Contra Costa County people should understand). Highly recommended.
The book also begins with the single best an accurate description of northern California seasons I've ever read:
"In later life, when I grew up and went out into the world, I was astonished to hear people speak of California as if it had no seasons. Winter was long, it brought huge rains that swelled the creek to a brown torrent and made lakes of backyards, and it brought tule fog so thick that lights burned through the day, gleaming dim and haggard along the streets. Then suddenly one morning the trees stood sunlit, their bark still black and sodden, but tightly budded, and within a week, through banks of poppies, the creek flashed clear as quartz. Summer moved in fast and stayed long; the creek dried out to a powdery gulch, backyards cracked like clay, under a white boiling sky the town lay bleached and blistered in a drone of gnats; then abruptly the sky cooled, grew high and clear like blue glass, gutters of yellow leaves swirled, carried higher each day by winds that finally shook the windows, and once more the rain and fog engulfed us."
The book also begins with the single best an accurate description of northern California seasons I've ever read:
"In later life, when I grew up and went out into the world, I was astonished to hear people speak of California as if it had no seasons. Winter was long, it brought huge rains that swelled the creek to a brown torrent and made lakes of backyards, and it brought tule fog so thick that lights burned through the day, gleaming dim and haggard along the streets. Then suddenly one morning the trees stood sunlit, their bark still black and sodden, but tightly budded, and within a week, through banks of poppies, the creek flashed clear as quartz. Summer moved in fast and stayed long; the creek dried out to a powdery gulch, backyards cracked like clay, under a white boiling sky the town lay bleached and blistered in a drone of gnats; then abruptly the sky cooled, grew high and clear like blue glass, gutters of yellow leaves swirled, carried higher each day by winds that finally shook the windows, and once more the rain and fog engulfed us."
February 25, 2020
Set in 'Mendoza' but is actually Martinez, CA. A young girl grows up at the time of WWII and the book is a wonderful insight into that period seen from the eyes of a young girl also leaving childhood behind.
January 15, 2018
Loved reading from the perspective of a young girl as she grows into a teenager. An interesting coming-of-age story as Suse considers the impact of war.
January 21, 2020
A young girl comes to understand the inevitability of war.
August 5, 2022
I am stunned I've never previously heard of this book or author. Rumors of Peace is a brilliant coming of age story set in Northern California during WWII. Leffland's writing and character development are excellent. I was hooked on p. 1, with her description of California which, to me, evoked some of John Steinbeck's work in East of Eden.
Like To Kill a Mockingbird, this substantive story is told through the eyes of a girl -- the main character, Suze. On the surface it may appear simplistic, particularly as Suze's thinking is rigidly black and white -- as commonly occurs during wartime. However, as Suze matures, she consciously reaches for growth, while simultaneously experiencing the ordinary drama of young teenagers alongside the extraordinary circumstances and issues of WWII. In contrast, her best friend rejects her true self in favor of conformism and popularity.
The language and concepts presented in Rumors of Peace become more sophisticated as Suze matures, culminating with a circumstance that pierces Suze's black and white thinking.
Members in my book group thought Rumors of Peace to be the best coming of age story they've read. It is definitely one to read and read again.
Like To Kill a Mockingbird, this substantive story is told through the eyes of a girl -- the main character, Suze. On the surface it may appear simplistic, particularly as Suze's thinking is rigidly black and white -- as commonly occurs during wartime. However, as Suze matures, she consciously reaches for growth, while simultaneously experiencing the ordinary drama of young teenagers alongside the extraordinary circumstances and issues of WWII. In contrast, her best friend rejects her true self in favor of conformism and popularity.
The language and concepts presented in Rumors of Peace become more sophisticated as Suze matures, culminating with a circumstance that pierces Suze's black and white thinking.
Members in my book group thought Rumors of Peace to be the best coming of age story they've read. It is definitely one to read and read again.
January 16, 2018
I so identify with Suse. While she followed WWII via the news paper and radio casts through the 1940’s, I worried about Russia in the 1950’ & 60’s. While she was relegated to the dumb class, so was I. While her best friend bloomed into a popular kid, so did mine, and while her circle included losers and clowns and greasers, mine did too. And then, there was one smart interesting unique person that she found – like a jewel—and a couple of those found me too. And life began to grow in new dimensions. So, I really loved this book as I identified with so much of it.
I loved the insights projected in the different character’s voices. Leffland’s lines drawn across class are keen and her unfolding of WWII through the eyes of a girl growing up in a small town goes through stages — cognitive & emotional development — inquiry, rage, sympathy, synthesis. She weaves us through all of the darkest corners of humanity and we still emerge with light on the hills.
And I laughed! I belly laughed out loud more than once. Leffland captures so many ironies of the growing up processes perfectly. Ella Leffland is good!
I loved the insights projected in the different character’s voices. Leffland’s lines drawn across class are keen and her unfolding of WWII through the eyes of a girl growing up in a small town goes through stages — cognitive & emotional development — inquiry, rage, sympathy, synthesis. She weaves us through all of the darkest corners of humanity and we still emerge with light on the hills.
And I laughed! I belly laughed out loud more than once. Leffland captures so many ironies of the growing up processes perfectly. Ella Leffland is good!
February 22, 2015
It's 1941 and 10 year old Suse Hansen doesn't think much about the war in Europe. She lives in Mendoza,California just a few miles from San Francisco,but when the Japanes bumb Pearal Harbor Suse becomes obsessed with the war. Over the next four years Suse faces many other problems,starting Jr. high school,new friends,her Brother going off to war ,her Sister going away to college and of course a sexual awakening which is very disturbing for her. I bought this book at a second hand bookstore in Hyde Park about 10 years ago and it has been sitting on my bookshelf all this time and I'm glad I finally got around to reading it. A very good read.
December 6, 2008
perhaps the greatest underrated coming-of-age story I've seen, as well as taking place in a slightly veiled version of the area I grew up in.
November 6, 2011
I did not want this book to end.
June 16, 2017
This is a powerful, well-written book about a time period I find intriguing (WWII) set in a place of significance to me--a neighboring city.
Takes one inside the head of a young girl so things can be a little strange and confusing at times, while emotions and thoughts are not always politically correct.
Did have a hard time with how mean this child, Suse, could be in actions while she could be down right violent in her thoughts. So, had a hard time liking her which is what kept this book, for me, from earning 5 stars.
Especially liked Helen Maria, who should be a literary classic yet she is so real--and was based on a real person according to the author when I saw her at an event.
Also from the author: Handsome Egon was based on a real person but the author's actual time with him was a single meal--probably the long day Suse spends with him and Helen Maria on her first trip to Berkeley.
The author actually was away from her family when the Port Chicago explosion happened. She didn't actually walk home, however--but she wanted to.
Takes one inside the head of a young girl so things can be a little strange and confusing at times, while emotions and thoughts are not always politically correct.
Did have a hard time with how mean this child, Suse, could be in actions while she could be down right violent in her thoughts. So, had a hard time liking her which is what kept this book, for me, from earning 5 stars.
Especially liked Helen Maria, who should be a literary classic yet she is so real--and was based on a real person according to the author when I saw her at an event.
Also from the author: Handsome Egon was based on a real person but the author's actual time with him was a single meal--probably the long day Suse spends with him and Helen Maria on her first trip to Berkeley.
The author actually was away from her family when the Port Chicago explosion happened. She didn't actually walk home, however--but she wanted to.
November 17, 2025
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December 24, 2019
First published in 1979, this novel tells the story of Suse, a girl growing up in Northern California during WWII. Pearl Harbor sends her down a dark road of prejudice, but thanks to some interesting people she meets, she learns a lot as she matures.
I wasn't sure what to make of Suse. In many ways, she wasn't very likable. Judgmental, prickly, out for Axis blood. But she had an innate curiosity that led her to question things and take a different path.
As someone who grew up during the Cold War, I understand her apprehension and fear of total annihilation. As we learn and grow and mature, we come to understand more and realize that living in fear and dread isn't living at all.
I wasn't sure what to make of Suse. In many ways, she wasn't very likable. Judgmental, prickly, out for Axis blood. But she had an innate curiosity that led her to question things and take a different path.
As someone who grew up during the Cold War, I understand her apprehension and fear of total annihilation. As we learn and grow and mature, we come to understand more and realize that living in fear and dread isn't living at all.
October 8, 2021
My Original Thoughts (2000):
Read this for an online book group. I enjoyed it, but didn't think it was great. Didn't captivate me. Coming of age story. Young girl growing up in Mendoza, California during WWII. Great description - reminded me of Steinbeck. Probably longer than necessary.
My Current Thoughts:
I vaguely remember reading this for one of my online book groups, but the details are pretty much lost after over 20 years.
Read this for an online book group. I enjoyed it, but didn't think it was great. Didn't captivate me. Coming of age story. Young girl growing up in Mendoza, California during WWII. Great description - reminded me of Steinbeck. Probably longer than necessary.
My Current Thoughts:
I vaguely remember reading this for one of my online book groups, but the details are pretty much lost after over 20 years.
October 4, 2017
Interesting Book
This book started out slow and was a bit of a chore, very repetitive. At some point it started moving faster and ended up being a good book. Provides you with some ideas to think about pertaining to history and war.
This book started out slow and was a bit of a chore, very repetitive. At some point it started moving faster and ended up being a good book. Provides you with some ideas to think about pertaining to history and war.
June 27, 2018
I usually love coming-of-age books, but this one, although interesting, but for me it was way too "wordy." Suse was young and curious, and I enjoyed reading about her escapades, but to me the narratives were long and drawn out. I found myself skipping over some parts. Good though.
November 25, 2018
Good descriptions. Could be considered a YA book because the protagonist is a young girl. Although she occasionally comes over as thinking and behaving like a adult, she can also act very immaturely. An interesting read.
April 16, 2020
Reflection on Sensitive Souls
I’m not sure if I read this book at the wrong time, or if I would have had mixed feelings about it had I read it at a less fraught time. It is a great window into 1940s culture, certainly.
A good read, but not a great one.
I’m not sure if I read this book at the wrong time, or if I would have had mixed feelings about it had I read it at a less fraught time. It is a great window into 1940s culture, certainly.
A good read, but not a great one.
December 31, 2016
A classic and it is very well written. More than just a coming of age story. Goes past all of those types of cliches.
October 5, 2017
A girl's emotional journey through adolescence and her observations about living through WWII.
January 4, 2020
The pain of early adolescence combined with the stress of living on the west coast of the US during WW II.
January 26, 2022
This book started out better than it finished. Leffland did a good job of getting into the MC's mind.
Read
January 1, 2025Recommended by Moms friend Tam Hege
March 5, 2017
I liked it behind with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Suse and he family love on Mendoza Ca. Suses Japanese and Italian friends are gathered up and sent off to internment camps. She's not sure how she feels about that. She is 10 years old when it all starts. Her friend Peggy has an older sibling who will graduate soon from high school and she is planning on attending Oxford when the war is over The book goes from Pearl Harbor to the end of the war.
June 12, 2014
I was very surprised by how much I liked this novel. I usually do not read historical fiction, and I would have never picked this book up if it was not for assigned reading. This was the first time in a very long time I enjoyed an actual novel assigned to me in a class since I was assigned to read The Handmaid's Tale in high school.
I enjoyed this novel because the ideas it had concerning war. One of my favorite statements is that history is a broken record domed to repeat itself, and peace is just peroration for the next war. I thought about theses ideas before but this was the first time I found someone who agrees with me. It also leads me to the next reason I enjoyed this book, and that is because I was a child in the Bush era and was around the same age as Suse in the novel when Pearl Harbor was bomb when the Twin Towers were attacked and through this novel I saw that History repeated itself. Unnecessary racism, paranoia of being bombed, people wanting revenge, and than in the end just wanting the war to end. It is a very eye opening novel and I learned more about World War II through the perspective of a citizen not a solider.
The only thing I did not like about this novel was the author made it hard to like every character because they would end up doing or saying something completely rude. However, I noticed that the actions they did were very immature, and the novel takes place over four years so as a reader I saw the characters grow out of this immaturity. Except for Peggy the author kind of left that character untied.
Overall I really enjoyed this novel and would recommend the novel to girls who want to learn more about World War II.
I enjoyed this novel because the ideas it had concerning war. One of my favorite statements is that history is a broken record domed to repeat itself, and peace is just peroration for the next war. I thought about theses ideas before but this was the first time I found someone who agrees with me. It also leads me to the next reason I enjoyed this book, and that is because I was a child in the Bush era and was around the same age as Suse in the novel when Pearl Harbor was bomb when the Twin Towers were attacked and through this novel I saw that History repeated itself. Unnecessary racism, paranoia of being bombed, people wanting revenge, and than in the end just wanting the war to end. It is a very eye opening novel and I learned more about World War II through the perspective of a citizen not a solider.
The only thing I did not like about this novel was the author made it hard to like every character because they would end up doing or saying something completely rude. However, I noticed that the actions they did were very immature, and the novel takes place over four years so as a reader I saw the characters grow out of this immaturity. Except for Peggy the author kind of left that character untied.
Overall I really enjoyed this novel and would recommend the novel to girls who want to learn more about World War II.
May 19, 2014
There is some lovely prose in this book, some lovely sentiments and nuggets of truth, but I can't get over how much I dislike the main character. lolol. I understand that this novel is a bit of a coming-of-age novel, that the character herself is young and is written as meant to be immature and rather reflective of many mindsets during this time; I understand that Suse slowly changes from the person she had at ten years old. However, I found many of her thoughts to be somewhat horrifying, many of her words rather cruel and harsh and so close-minded -- especially notable considering how young she is.
At times, she can be refreshingly open to learning, but as her mother, Helen Maria, and Egon note, she can also be pretty black and white about many, many things. And I argue so very strongly that the world is never that clearly divided; there are always multitudes of shades of color, representative of the multitudes of minds on this planet.
Again, while I can make some concessions to the fact that Suse makes a journey in order to find herself and what she truly believes, what she makes of the world, at the same time, by the end, I feel as if the novel ends leaving us with the question: does Suse every fully mature? And while that isn't necessarily a bad thing, I did not struggle through nearly 400 pages of words in 7 hours for an open-ended ending like that.
At times, she can be refreshingly open to learning, but as her mother, Helen Maria, and Egon note, she can also be pretty black and white about many, many things. And I argue so very strongly that the world is never that clearly divided; there are always multitudes of shades of color, representative of the multitudes of minds on this planet.
Again, while I can make some concessions to the fact that Suse makes a journey in order to find herself and what she truly believes, what she makes of the world, at the same time, by the end, I feel as if the novel ends leaving us with the question: does Suse every fully mature? And while that isn't necessarily a bad thing, I did not struggle through nearly 400 pages of words in 7 hours for an open-ended ending like that.
July 22, 2012
I read this book because it was recommended by a local author and sounded like an interesting coming-of-age-story. Published in 1979 so it was too late for my English teachers to assign and I had never heard of it before. Set in the fictional town of Mendoza, which is obviously Martinez to anyone familiar with the East Bay Area of CA, the story is told from a young girl's perspective during WWII. Touches on so many themes: growth from tomboy to young womanhood, first love, sexual awakening, evolving friendships, pressure to conform. Interesting to read the point of view of the young girl, Suse, living on the West Coast as history unfolds around her: Pearl Harbor, acquaintances relocated to internment camps, older brother enlists and is sent to Europe, the terror of the night of the Port Chicago explosion, attending the charter meeting of the UN in SF. Throw in her trips to Berkeley to visit her older "Bohemian" friend, Helen Maria, along with her entertaining correspondence and discussions with her friends and her crush, it all adds up to a good read.
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