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My Dear I Wanted to Tell You #2
The Heroes' Welcome
The Heroes’ Welcome is the incandescent sequel to the bestselling R&J pick My Dear, I Wanted to Tell You. Its evocation of a time deeply wounded by the pain of WW1 will capture and beguile readers fresh to Louisa Young’s wonderful writing, and those previously enthralled by the stories of Nadine and Riley, Rose, Peter and Julia.
LONDON, APRIL 1919.
THE GREAT WAR HAS ENDED.
In a flurry of spring blossom, childhood sweethearts Nadine Waverney and Rilery Purefoy are married. Thos who have survived the war are, in a way, home. But Riley is wounded and disfigured; normality seems incomprehensible, and love unfathomable. Honeymooning in a battered, liberated Europe, they long for a marriage made of love and passion rather than dependence and pity.
At Locke Hill in Kent, Riley’s former CO Major Peter Locke is obsessed by Homer. His hysterical wife, Julia, and the young son they barely know attempt to navigate family life, but are confounded by the ghosts and memories of Peter’s war. Despite all this, there is the glimmer of a real future in the distance: Rose Locke, Peter’s cousin and Riley’s former nurse, finds that independence might be hers for the taking, after all.
For those who fought, those who healed and those who stayed behind, 1919 is a year of accepting realities, holding to hope and reaching after new beginnings.
The Heroes’ Welcome is a brave and brilliant evocation of a time deeply wounded by the pain of war. It is as devastating as it is inspiring.
LONDON, APRIL 1919.
THE GREAT WAR HAS ENDED.
In a flurry of spring blossom, childhood sweethearts Nadine Waverney and Rilery Purefoy are married. Thos who have survived the war are, in a way, home. But Riley is wounded and disfigured; normality seems incomprehensible, and love unfathomable. Honeymooning in a battered, liberated Europe, they long for a marriage made of love and passion rather than dependence and pity.
At Locke Hill in Kent, Riley’s former CO Major Peter Locke is obsessed by Homer. His hysterical wife, Julia, and the young son they barely know attempt to navigate family life, but are confounded by the ghosts and memories of Peter’s war. Despite all this, there is the glimmer of a real future in the distance: Rose Locke, Peter’s cousin and Riley’s former nurse, finds that independence might be hers for the taking, after all.
For those who fought, those who healed and those who stayed behind, 1919 is a year of accepting realities, holding to hope and reaching after new beginnings.
The Heroes’ Welcome is a brave and brilliant evocation of a time deeply wounded by the pain of war. It is as devastating as it is inspiring.
262 pages, Hardcover
First published May 22, 2014
29 people are currently reading
1332 people want to read
About the author
Louisa Young
27 books168 followersLouisa Young is a history graduate, and worked as a journalist for British national newspapers and magazines for some years. Her first book was A Great Task of Happiness (1995), the life of Kathleen Bruce, her grandmother, the sculptor and wife of Scott of the Antarctic. She followed that with her Egyptian trilogy of novels: Baby Love (which was listed for the Orange Prize), Desiring Cairo and Tree of Pearls. They were followed by The Book of the Heart, a cultural history of our most symbolic organ. She has also published the Lionboy trilogy of children’s novels, written with her then ten-year-old daughter under the pseudonym Zizou Corder and two further children's novels, Lee Raven Boy Thief and Halo. .
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Her 2011 bestseller My Dear, I Wanted to Tell You, which was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award 2011 and the Wellcome Book Prize, was a Richard and Judy Book Club choice, and the first ever winner of the Galaxy Audiobook of the Year. It was followed by two sequels, The Heroes' Welcome and Devotion, and a memoir, You Left Early: A True Story of Love and Alcohol, about her relationship with the composer Robert Lockhart.
Her most recent book is a novel, Twelve Months and a Day.
She lives in London.
http://www.louisayoung.co.uk/about.html
,
Her 2011 bestseller My Dear, I Wanted to Tell You, which was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award 2011 and the Wellcome Book Prize, was a Richard and Judy Book Club choice, and the first ever winner of the Galaxy Audiobook of the Year. It was followed by two sequels, The Heroes' Welcome and Devotion, and a memoir, You Left Early: A True Story of Love and Alcohol, about her relationship with the composer Robert Lockhart.
Her most recent book is a novel, Twelve Months and a Day.
She lives in London.
http://www.louisayoung.co.uk/about.html
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 149 reviews
May 23, 2015
The world that World War I soldiers returned to was one that was totally unexpected. The soldiers that fought in the trenches didn't expect their jaws to be blown off or their psyche to be so traumatized. This is the story of Riley and Peter and their return to civilian life. It is also the story of the women who loved them. How they all managed was the plot of The Heroes' Welcome.
I would encourage reading My Dear I Wanted to Tell You, by the same author, first, so that you can get a full introduction to these characters. It was a wonderful book and I highly recommend it. The difference between these heroes leaving for war and returning is remarkable. I very much look forward to the next installment
I would encourage reading My Dear I Wanted to Tell You, by the same author, first, so that you can get a full introduction to these characters. It was a wonderful book and I highly recommend it. The difference between these heroes leaving for war and returning is remarkable. I very much look forward to the next installment
September 30, 2016
even better than My Dear I wanted to Tell You to which is a direct sequel; again the main draws are the author style and the main characters, especially Nadine and Riley, though there is a lot of Peter, Julia and Rose too; the blurb tells enough about the story-line so won't go into more detail
while one can talk about themes, serious stuff etc, for me at least the main draws of the novel are its vitality, its affirmation of life and the way the pages flow so smooth and fast and by the end you want to read a few hundred pages more and stay with the main characters and their world for a long time
highly recommended
while one can talk about themes, serious stuff etc, for me at least the main draws of the novel are its vitality, its affirmation of life and the way the pages flow so smooth and fast and by the end you want to read a few hundred pages more and stay with the main characters and their world for a long time
highly recommended
April 7, 2015
1919. The Great War may be over, but those who survived are left to put the shattered pieces of themselves and their families back together, alone and unacknowledged. Twenty-three year old Riley Purefoy lost half his jaw in the war; the artificial replacement helps hold his face together and is healing well, but he can't chew food or speak clearly. Still, Riley considers himself one of the lucky ones, and not just because all his limbs are in working order and his brain isn't muddled. He's just got married to Nadine, his fiancée from before the war, who served as a nurse on the front. While Riley comes from a working-class background, Nadine's parents are upper class, and as much as they've always liked Riley, they don't much care for the idea of their only child marrying a disabled veteran with no work skills or prospects.
Riley tries to find work, but he's just one of many unemployed young man missing body parts. Yet his determination not to live off Nadine's parents drives him to persevere, and make his own path.
In contrast, his commanding officer from the war, Peter Locke, returns from the war haunted by the overwhelming loss of life, all the men under his command who didn't make it. The list of names feels immense, and Peter soon turns to alcohol in order to endure. His wife is no help: Julia was raised by a domineering monster of a woman who made her understand that her only value was in her looks, so in order to be what she thought Peter wanted, she underwent a facial treatment that's left her face looking like a mask: white, immobile, false. Julia is ill-equipped to live with this new version of Peter, or their three-year-old son, Tom, who was whisked away by Julia's mother after his birth. Not knowing how to be a mother to Tom, or a wife or even friend to Peter, her plaintive, melodramatic behaviour quickly drives them both away. And now that Nadine and Riley are married and off on their honeymoon, the household only has Peter's cousin Rose to keep it sane.
Rose, however, has the opportunity to train as a doctor, an opportunity she wants with heart and soul. Never married and now never likely to be, medicine is the one thing she cares about - aside from her cousin and his family. Now she must make a decision, to put her own life ahead of someone else's and sacrifice her dream, or to stay and help.
From March to December, 1919, The Heroes' Welcome follows the paths of these five men and women as they struggle to build a life and a future while they mourn for all that's been lost.
There is always a "right" time to read a book, when your mind and emotions are aligned with a book's mood and tone and content, when your own mind is receptive and open to the story that wants to be heard. As interested as I am in World War One stories - stories about the first half of the twentieth-century interest me greatly - this was not, unfortunately, as it turned out, the right time for me to read this book. I kept picking it up, telling myself, Now, now, now I will start it; reading the first few paragraphs that describe Riley's injury, his face and what he's had to adapt to, I had to keep putting it down. The trouble way, I'd just finished reading Chloe Hooper's The Tall Man - a heavy non-fiction expository book - and was reading another about a man with mental health problems who abducts a girl, plus I'd just watched Sophie Scholl, a World War II story that made me cry buckets, and I was feeling incredibly overwhelmed and in need of something light and fun. The Heroes' Welcome felt like the last nail in the coffin of my emotional well-being (that sounds incredibly dramatic, but there are other things going on at the time that were making me feel this way).
All of that aside, I did find this to be a very readable novel, and certainly a very memorable one. Not enough stories get written about life after the war - we tend to skip a few years and go straight to the heady, exciting, liberating Twenties. No one received counselling or support after the First World War; likewise, no one seemed to want to hear about the struggles of the survivors through fiction. This story felt raw and true and honest, just one story among many possibles that could have been told but no less real for that. It is a sequel to a novel I haven't read, My Dear I Wanted to Tell You, but it didn't make a difference: anything you need to know in order to understand these characters and their stories is provided. And aside from the sense that they have considerable shared history that I wasn't privy to, it didn't really feel like I was missing out for not having read the first book.
This is a depressing tale, though: the story of Julia affected me deeply and on top of all the sad stories I'd been reading and watching at the time, it felt like one sad story too many. Perhaps its that element of realism, but this didn't read like a story of hope to me, but one of struggle. Riley's industry, pro-activeness and pragmatic outlook help considerably in balancing out Peter's self-indulgent (yet still understandable) melancholy, depression, and general stubbornness to move on with his life. The two are opposite ends of a pendulum with a narrow swing. Their wives - and Rose - also present drastically different perspectives. Julia is the wife who stayed behind, who has no idea how to do anything let alone look after a small child and a mentally ill husband who shuns her. Yet of all of them, Julia goes through the most in terms of metamorphosis, which is why what happens is all the more heartbreaking. You come to care for her, shifting from scornful pity to sympathy and then to empathy. Of them all, Nadine was the least well-developed, and a little too perfect, but it was Tom, the child, who, while being thinly sketched, hit the hardest: my own son is three, nearly four, as I write this, and the neglect that Tom experiences was painful to read.
At times, the prose style felt too static, too constrained. The omniscient narrator describes almost endlessly, and left too little for me to but endure. The writing flowed, the story flowed, and you certainly get swept along - almost, slightly, with that 'train wreck' sensation, that fascination with the macabre that continues to appeal to us - but at the same time it never relaxes into the telling, never relinquishes control or trusts the reader to understand these characters on their own.
This was an emotional read, an intense and often upsetting story that I can't imagine myself ever forgetting. That's something I always want from fiction, that evidence of a connection and a good story told well. These people felt real, their stories like true reflections of real ones. For all that, though, it lacked that organic touch: the third-person omniscient narrator was just too intrusive for me. That's an element of the story that I don't think I would have reacted to any differently, had I read this at a different time.
My thanks to the publisher for a copy of this book via TLC Book Tours
Riley tries to find work, but he's just one of many unemployed young man missing body parts. Yet his determination not to live off Nadine's parents drives him to persevere, and make his own path.
In contrast, his commanding officer from the war, Peter Locke, returns from the war haunted by the overwhelming loss of life, all the men under his command who didn't make it. The list of names feels immense, and Peter soon turns to alcohol in order to endure. His wife is no help: Julia was raised by a domineering monster of a woman who made her understand that her only value was in her looks, so in order to be what she thought Peter wanted, she underwent a facial treatment that's left her face looking like a mask: white, immobile, false. Julia is ill-equipped to live with this new version of Peter, or their three-year-old son, Tom, who was whisked away by Julia's mother after his birth. Not knowing how to be a mother to Tom, or a wife or even friend to Peter, her plaintive, melodramatic behaviour quickly drives them both away. And now that Nadine and Riley are married and off on their honeymoon, the household only has Peter's cousin Rose to keep it sane.
Rose, however, has the opportunity to train as a doctor, an opportunity she wants with heart and soul. Never married and now never likely to be, medicine is the one thing she cares about - aside from her cousin and his family. Now she must make a decision, to put her own life ahead of someone else's and sacrifice her dream, or to stay and help.
From March to December, 1919, The Heroes' Welcome follows the paths of these five men and women as they struggle to build a life and a future while they mourn for all that's been lost.
There is always a "right" time to read a book, when your mind and emotions are aligned with a book's mood and tone and content, when your own mind is receptive and open to the story that wants to be heard. As interested as I am in World War One stories - stories about the first half of the twentieth-century interest me greatly - this was not, unfortunately, as it turned out, the right time for me to read this book. I kept picking it up, telling myself, Now, now, now I will start it; reading the first few paragraphs that describe Riley's injury, his face and what he's had to adapt to, I had to keep putting it down. The trouble way, I'd just finished reading Chloe Hooper's The Tall Man - a heavy non-fiction expository book - and was reading another about a man with mental health problems who abducts a girl, plus I'd just watched Sophie Scholl, a World War II story that made me cry buckets, and I was feeling incredibly overwhelmed and in need of something light and fun. The Heroes' Welcome felt like the last nail in the coffin of my emotional well-being (that sounds incredibly dramatic, but there are other things going on at the time that were making me feel this way).
All of that aside, I did find this to be a very readable novel, and certainly a very memorable one. Not enough stories get written about life after the war - we tend to skip a few years and go straight to the heady, exciting, liberating Twenties. No one received counselling or support after the First World War; likewise, no one seemed to want to hear about the struggles of the survivors through fiction. This story felt raw and true and honest, just one story among many possibles that could have been told but no less real for that. It is a sequel to a novel I haven't read, My Dear I Wanted to Tell You, but it didn't make a difference: anything you need to know in order to understand these characters and their stories is provided. And aside from the sense that they have considerable shared history that I wasn't privy to, it didn't really feel like I was missing out for not having read the first book.
This is a depressing tale, though: the story of Julia affected me deeply and on top of all the sad stories I'd been reading and watching at the time, it felt like one sad story too many. Perhaps its that element of realism, but this didn't read like a story of hope to me, but one of struggle. Riley's industry, pro-activeness and pragmatic outlook help considerably in balancing out Peter's self-indulgent (yet still understandable) melancholy, depression, and general stubbornness to move on with his life. The two are opposite ends of a pendulum with a narrow swing. Their wives - and Rose - also present drastically different perspectives. Julia is the wife who stayed behind, who has no idea how to do anything let alone look after a small child and a mentally ill husband who shuns her. Yet of all of them, Julia goes through the most in terms of metamorphosis, which is why what happens is all the more heartbreaking. You come to care for her, shifting from scornful pity to sympathy and then to empathy. Of them all, Nadine was the least well-developed, and a little too perfect, but it was Tom, the child, who, while being thinly sketched, hit the hardest: my own son is three, nearly four, as I write this, and the neglect that Tom experiences was painful to read.
At times, the prose style felt too static, too constrained. The omniscient narrator describes almost endlessly, and left too little for me to but endure. The writing flowed, the story flowed, and you certainly get swept along - almost, slightly, with that 'train wreck' sensation, that fascination with the macabre that continues to appeal to us - but at the same time it never relaxes into the telling, never relinquishes control or trusts the reader to understand these characters on their own.
This was an emotional read, an intense and often upsetting story that I can't imagine myself ever forgetting. That's something I always want from fiction, that evidence of a connection and a good story told well. These people felt real, their stories like true reflections of real ones. For all that, though, it lacked that organic touch: the third-person omniscient narrator was just too intrusive for me. That's an element of the story that I don't think I would have reacted to any differently, had I read this at a different time.
My thanks to the publisher for a copy of this book via TLC Book Tours
March 8, 2015
Original review can be found at http://kristineandterri.blogspot.ca/2...
I received an advanced readers copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. Thank you!
This book is the sequel to My Dear I Wanted to Tell You which I did not realise when I requested the book. I was able to follow along but I think that readers would benefit greatly from reading them in the proper order in order to be more familiar with the characters. Also, I found myself really interested in what happened before this book started and thinking that it sounded like a really great read. I will be going back and reading the first book.
This book is basically about the effects of war after the fact for a group of different people. It shows the impact of war on not just the soldiers that fought but also the people close to them. It very beautifully shows how war rages on in different ways, faces and situations and how each person copes. The story is not a fast moving one, in fact it moves quite slowly.Although slow in pace I would not say it is boring but instead somewhat depressing. Of course, with the subject matter, you really can't expect anything else. This book paints a very realistic picture of a group of people who have all been damaged in one way or another by war and their struggle to move on.
I feel that the story would have been more powerful if I had read the first book before reading this one. Knowing each characters full story would have given me a greater feeling for each character. Most of the characters I felt like I had a good understanding of but I think I needed more of the back story on Peter to empathise fully with him. This book is not for everyone. It is not filled with action and adventure but more emotion and inner turmoil.
I received an advanced readers copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. Thank you!
This book is the sequel to My Dear I Wanted to Tell You which I did not realise when I requested the book. I was able to follow along but I think that readers would benefit greatly from reading them in the proper order in order to be more familiar with the characters. Also, I found myself really interested in what happened before this book started and thinking that it sounded like a really great read. I will be going back and reading the first book.
This book is basically about the effects of war after the fact for a group of different people. It shows the impact of war on not just the soldiers that fought but also the people close to them. It very beautifully shows how war rages on in different ways, faces and situations and how each person copes. The story is not a fast moving one, in fact it moves quite slowly.Although slow in pace I would not say it is boring but instead somewhat depressing. Of course, with the subject matter, you really can't expect anything else. This book paints a very realistic picture of a group of people who have all been damaged in one way or another by war and their struggle to move on.
I feel that the story would have been more powerful if I had read the first book before reading this one. Knowing each characters full story would have given me a greater feeling for each character. Most of the characters I felt like I had a good understanding of but I think I needed more of the back story on Peter to empathise fully with him. This book is not for everyone. It is not filled with action and adventure but more emotion and inner turmoil.
November 13, 2014
England 1919, focusing on a badly maimed soldier and a parallel account of an officer who had not been wounded. Full of thoughts in italics which I found most annoying and a story so soppy that I couldn't enjoy it.
July 18, 2018
A gift of a book; better, I think, than the first one. There was such a sense of tremulous hope through much of it that was really captivating and then the shock of the peacetime griefs feeling so cruel. The theme of the odyssey back from war was so well examined and then the tiny reference at the end to Tom wanting to be in the RAF pretty much broke me.
August 21, 2024
Wasn't a fan of this one. I liked the premise of the book, that it was going to focus on how people coped and tried to move on after the war, but overall it wasn't a very enjoyable read.
There's handful of main characters: Riley, a former officer who was wounded and had his jaw reconstructed. His wife, Nadine, who had served as a nurse (I think? This was a follow-up to a previous novel that I haven't read). Peter, Riley's former CO who was not wounded but was left to mentally deal with losing his men. His wife Julia, an unhappy woman who destroyed her face after a beauty treatment gone wrong. The couple's young son Tom. And then Rose, who wanted to be a doctor and is someone's (Peter's?) cousin.
The book follows this group for about a decade after the war, starting in 1919, but largely centres around how different Peter and Riley were. Although physically scarred, Riley more or less led a normal life. Described as being a bit thinner but otherwise visibly like he always had been, Peter was consumed by thoughts of the war and what he saw as his failure to save his men. While he lacked any physical wounds, his life was falling apart due to his mental state.
One thing I thought was quite interesting was Peter's near obsession with Homer's The Odyssey and how he connected to it. That seemed like such a unique touch to the novel. Also very academic. However, looking at Young's acknowledgements, she seems to have taken this idea from Jonathan Shay, who in his books uses Greek classics such as The Iliad and The Odyssey to look at Vietnam vets with PTSD. So what was essentially the best part of the book was taken from someone else.
Nadine was a fairly disappointing character. She was just too good. There wasn't much complexity there. And that whole episode towards the end really was too dramatic and seemed like it was thrown in because something needed to happen, since not much actually did. Young's writing carries the book on well enough, but it seemed sparse. The italic interjections which were meant to be the characters' inner thoughts were quite choppy and broke up the narrative.
I finished the book around 3pm and it's now midnight and I'm already having trouble remembering what I read. Not exactly a book that's going to stay with me, but it was a quick read and I appreciate what Young wanted to explore.
There's handful of main characters: Riley, a former officer who was wounded and had his jaw reconstructed. His wife, Nadine, who had served as a nurse (I think? This was a follow-up to a previous novel that I haven't read). Peter, Riley's former CO who was not wounded but was left to mentally deal with losing his men. His wife Julia, an unhappy woman who destroyed her face after a beauty treatment gone wrong. The couple's young son Tom. And then Rose, who wanted to be a doctor and is someone's (Peter's?) cousin.
The book follows this group for about a decade after the war, starting in 1919, but largely centres around how different Peter and Riley were. Although physically scarred, Riley more or less led a normal life. Described as being a bit thinner but otherwise visibly like he always had been, Peter was consumed by thoughts of the war and what he saw as his failure to save his men. While he lacked any physical wounds, his life was falling apart due to his mental state.
One thing I thought was quite interesting was Peter's near obsession with Homer's The Odyssey and how he connected to it. That seemed like such a unique touch to the novel. Also very academic. However, looking at Young's acknowledgements, she seems to have taken this idea from Jonathan Shay, who in his books uses Greek classics such as The Iliad and The Odyssey to look at Vietnam vets with PTSD. So what was essentially the best part of the book was taken from someone else.
Nadine was a fairly disappointing character. She was just too good. There wasn't much complexity there. And that whole episode towards the end really was too dramatic and seemed like it was thrown in because something needed to happen, since not much actually did. Young's writing carries the book on well enough, but it seemed sparse. The italic interjections which were meant to be the characters' inner thoughts were quite choppy and broke up the narrative.
I finished the book around 3pm and it's now midnight and I'm already having trouble remembering what I read. Not exactly a book that's going to stay with me, but it was a quick read and I appreciate what Young wanted to explore.
July 22, 2014
Sadly this was not as good as My Dear I wanted to Tell You, I found it very depressing, I know that life after the war was not a bed of roses but this book didn't seem to be going anywhere and finished with no real ending
October 16, 2019
I listened to this wonderful book and Dan Stevens is such an effective narrator. He definitely shares the stars.
May 27, 2019
3.5 out of 5 stars
This is a tale of two men Peter and Riley who got affected in different ways by World War One. Peter comes back with no obvious wounds but his are in his head. He comes back a completely different man who drinks to mask his memories and guilt. The relationship he has with his wife is in pieces and we see her torment. Riley comes back with a reconstructed jaw which is obvious to everyone but he hates people seeing it all and pitying him. Newly married he has to learn to accept the new him and see that nadine loves him. I thought that the way that the affects of the war is seen from two sides, physical and emotional, is written very well. However I found it hard to get into this book and the references to Greek mythology lost me.
This is a tale of two men Peter and Riley who got affected in different ways by World War One. Peter comes back with no obvious wounds but his are in his head. He comes back a completely different man who drinks to mask his memories and guilt. The relationship he has with his wife is in pieces and we see her torment. Riley comes back with a reconstructed jaw which is obvious to everyone but he hates people seeing it all and pitying him. Newly married he has to learn to accept the new him and see that nadine loves him. I thought that the way that the affects of the war is seen from two sides, physical and emotional, is written very well. However I found it hard to get into this book and the references to Greek mythology lost me.
September 1, 2022
Jak oceniam tę powieść? Do pierwszej połowy (a nawet głębiej) byłam pewna, że nie przypadła mi do gustu, ale ze względu na to, że rzadko odkładam niedokończone książki na półkę (biblioteczną hehe) oraz brnęło się przez nią szybko, również tematyka wojenna i osadzone w niej wątki miłosne to coś, co mnie przyciąga, dotarłam więc do ostatniej strony. I nie żałuję, bo moje zdanie się nieco zmieniło. O ile sam styl pisania średnio przypadł mi do gustu, o tyle fabuła okazała się ciekawa i nieprzewidywalna 😀
Moja ocena to 3.8
Moja ocena to 3.8
March 5, 2024
It’s 1919 and the Great War is over. Riley and Peter survived the fighting, but now, can they survive what comes next? Like everyone who experienced war, they are scarred. Riley’s face is badly disfigured, and he wonders how he can rebuild his life. Peter is tortured mentally and turns to drink to try to dull the pain. Can either of them find happiness?
Follows on where My Dear I Wanted To Tell You left off.
Follows on where My Dear I Wanted To Tell You left off.
October 19, 2018
Stunning sequel to 'My Dear, I Wanted To Tell You', following Riley, Nadine, Peter, Julia and Rose after the First World War ends. Beautiful writing and superb story telling.
April 4, 2015
The Hero's Welcome opens in 1919 with the wedding of Riley and Nadine, childhood friends and sweethearts. In attendance is Riley's best friend and captain during the war, Peter, and Peter's son Tom.
Afterwards, Riley and Nadine go to tell their families, none of whom react well. Nadine and Riley are from different worlds, she is upper class, he working class. Before the war, their marriage would probably have been impossible. Then there is the fact that Riley was badly injured in the war. He lost his jaw, which has been reconstructed. With such a disfigurement, how will he possibly be able to find a job and support his wife?
Peter goes home to his wife Julia, hands over his son and goes into his study to start reading the Odyssey and drink whisky. Although he was not physically injured during the war, he is suffering. Memories and dreams of men he lost haunt him. Neither Julia or Tom, who is very young, understand and Julia, under the misguided idea that Peter would love her again if she was still young and beautiful has given herself a facial with caustic acid which has gone wrong, leaving her face permanently damaged.
All of this can be blamed on and placed at the feet of the war. This book, though, looks at what happened to people once the war was over. Men came back to a hero's welcome but no jobs, no plans for reintegrating them back into society, no understanding of the psychological damage many had suffered, and no real desire to look at and acknowledge the physical injuries a lot of soldiers came back with. These were too much of a reminder of what had happened. People didn't want to remember, they wanted to move on.
As, of course, do all the characters in this book. Moving on though, isn't that easy and Peter and Julia especially don't seem to know how. Their story was tragic to me. I felt for both of them, and Tom, a child who couldn't impact anything but was just as much a victim of the war. Thankfully, Riley and Nadine's story is more positive. They manage to remain in the world, unlike Peter and Julia, and - whilst it isn't a world either of them expected or necessarily wanted to be living in - manage to rebuild their lives. There are misunderstandings and downs as well as ups along the way but they are determined to not be victims. I really admired this in them.
Although written in the third person, Louisa Young also uses the first person to show what each character is thinking. The mix works well and I came to care for each one of them. She makes them sympathetic but there isn't any pity. I don't normally read this type of fiction and was worried it would be overly sentimental but it wasn't at all. I was also worried that I would be missing something as I hadn't read this books predecessor but it does stand alone.
The book itself was well written. It flowed for me and I was drawn in from page one. This was because of the characters but also because of the time and place. I feel I understand more now about what soldiers faced when returning home, and this has struck a chord in the year we have been "celebrating" the 100 year anniversary of World War I. I came away wanting to know more. And read Louisa Young's earlier books. Great read!
Afterwards, Riley and Nadine go to tell their families, none of whom react well. Nadine and Riley are from different worlds, she is upper class, he working class. Before the war, their marriage would probably have been impossible. Then there is the fact that Riley was badly injured in the war. He lost his jaw, which has been reconstructed. With such a disfigurement, how will he possibly be able to find a job and support his wife?
Peter goes home to his wife Julia, hands over his son and goes into his study to start reading the Odyssey and drink whisky. Although he was not physically injured during the war, he is suffering. Memories and dreams of men he lost haunt him. Neither Julia or Tom, who is very young, understand and Julia, under the misguided idea that Peter would love her again if she was still young and beautiful has given herself a facial with caustic acid which has gone wrong, leaving her face permanently damaged.
All of this can be blamed on and placed at the feet of the war. This book, though, looks at what happened to people once the war was over. Men came back to a hero's welcome but no jobs, no plans for reintegrating them back into society, no understanding of the psychological damage many had suffered, and no real desire to look at and acknowledge the physical injuries a lot of soldiers came back with. These were too much of a reminder of what had happened. People didn't want to remember, they wanted to move on.
As, of course, do all the characters in this book. Moving on though, isn't that easy and Peter and Julia especially don't seem to know how. Their story was tragic to me. I felt for both of them, and Tom, a child who couldn't impact anything but was just as much a victim of the war. Thankfully, Riley and Nadine's story is more positive. They manage to remain in the world, unlike Peter and Julia, and - whilst it isn't a world either of them expected or necessarily wanted to be living in - manage to rebuild their lives. There are misunderstandings and downs as well as ups along the way but they are determined to not be victims. I really admired this in them.
Although written in the third person, Louisa Young also uses the first person to show what each character is thinking. The mix works well and I came to care for each one of them. She makes them sympathetic but there isn't any pity. I don't normally read this type of fiction and was worried it would be overly sentimental but it wasn't at all. I was also worried that I would be missing something as I hadn't read this books predecessor but it does stand alone.
The book itself was well written. It flowed for me and I was drawn in from page one. This was because of the characters but also because of the time and place. I feel I understand more now about what soldiers faced when returning home, and this has struck a chord in the year we have been "celebrating" the 100 year anniversary of World War I. I came away wanting to know more. And read Louisa Young's earlier books. Great read!
December 26, 2018
1.5 stars
While the first volume in this series was quite moving with some freshness (or maybe I have’t read that many books on this topic) and flawed characters who all deserved understanding, The Heroes’ Welcome felt clumsy and made me uneasy more often than not. On the one hand, of course I wanted to learn what happened to the characters and how they would manage to overcome the drama of their lives, changed into a sad mess by the war. On the other, what Young offered was rather thoroughly disappointing.
There is no compassion for all kinds of victims of the war, housewives included, that made me like the first book, My Dear I Wanted to Tell You. Oh no, this time Young makes a fat line between the good (the ones who took part in the war) and the bad (the ones who didn’t.) Julia is a sad caricature of herself, even if in the first part she was balancing on the verge of a mental breakdown and being ridiculous. The only moments she is redeemed are the ones in which she takes her husband’s side, without a question, without understanding. She is loyal and that is her only positive quality, her needs, dreams and own traumas are meaningless as she doesn’t understand the horrors Peter went through. Peter, on the other hand, a quite violent alcoholic who totally neglects his wife and child is still presented as the only harmed side in this relationship. I wouldn’t like to diminish the trauma of the war, but the way Young presents the Lockes is sad, one-sided and hurtful. No wonder she gets rid of Julia, which solves the rest of the characters’ problems, mostly.
On the other side we have Riley who became a saint. There is no conflicted and impulsive youth from the first part, now he speaks words of wisdom and his pain makes him wise and forgiving for everyone. Somehow however, he became rather unlikeable in the process. I do like positive characters and I have absolutely nothing against heroes growing in this direction but here it simply felt rushed, unnatural and simply boring (and annoying). Nadine is a shadow of herself, a boring saint as well. She has some dreams and ideas but they are just there, to be noted. What on earth is Rose doing in this book I still have no idea – apart from praising Riley and Nadine and showing some of the current social changes.
Oh, and if you suspect Riley’s implied bisexuality disappeared into thin air, yes, you are correct.
This book is certainly readable and as this is the second volume you are surely invested in the plot, more or less. But to cut the long story short, in my opinion it is not a successful continuation and I’m surely not going to read the third part.
While the first volume in this series was quite moving with some freshness (or maybe I have’t read that many books on this topic) and flawed characters who all deserved understanding, The Heroes’ Welcome felt clumsy and made me uneasy more often than not. On the one hand, of course I wanted to learn what happened to the characters and how they would manage to overcome the drama of their lives, changed into a sad mess by the war. On the other, what Young offered was rather thoroughly disappointing.
There is no compassion for all kinds of victims of the war, housewives included, that made me like the first book, My Dear I Wanted to Tell You. Oh no, this time Young makes a fat line between the good (the ones who took part in the war) and the bad (the ones who didn’t.) Julia is a sad caricature of herself, even if in the first part she was balancing on the verge of a mental breakdown and being ridiculous. The only moments she is redeemed are the ones in which she takes her husband’s side, without a question, without understanding. She is loyal and that is her only positive quality, her needs, dreams and own traumas are meaningless as she doesn’t understand the horrors Peter went through. Peter, on the other hand, a quite violent alcoholic who totally neglects his wife and child is still presented as the only harmed side in this relationship. I wouldn’t like to diminish the trauma of the war, but the way Young presents the Lockes is sad, one-sided and hurtful. No wonder she gets rid of Julia, which solves the rest of the characters’ problems, mostly.
On the other side we have Riley who became a saint. There is no conflicted and impulsive youth from the first part, now he speaks words of wisdom and his pain makes him wise and forgiving for everyone. Somehow however, he became rather unlikeable in the process. I do like positive characters and I have absolutely nothing against heroes growing in this direction but here it simply felt rushed, unnatural and simply boring (and annoying). Nadine is a shadow of herself, a boring saint as well. She has some dreams and ideas but they are just there, to be noted. What on earth is Rose doing in this book I still have no idea – apart from praising Riley and Nadine and showing some of the current social changes.
Oh, and if you suspect Riley’s implied bisexuality disappeared into thin air, yes, you are correct.
This book is certainly readable and as this is the second volume you are surely invested in the plot, more or less. But to cut the long story short, in my opinion it is not a successful continuation and I’m surely not going to read the third part.
June 8, 2014
Recently, I pulled My Dear I Wanted To Tell You from the To Be Read pile, not least because the wonderful people of Goodreads were sending me a copy of the sequel. The sequel arrived, I read it. Here we are. Louisa Young appears to be following in the footsteps of Elizabeth Jane Howard in chronicling a family moving through the twentieth century and there is a definite suggestion of more to come. I have mentioned feeling slightly underwhelmed by the first in the series; it dealt with the topic of facial disfigurements and the pioneering work in plastic surgery which took place as a result of the First World War but somehow lacked emotional resonance. It invited comparisons to Atonement in its subject matter but rather failed to live up to them. Nevertheless, Louisa Young's personal passion for the period came across vividly and I approached The Heroes' Welcome with interest.
The title obviously comes from David Lloyd George's speech telling the nation to make Britain a country 'fit for heroes to live'. Cue twenty years of economic instability and another world war. In focussing on the aftermath for the survivors rather than the tragic lost generation, Louisa Young takes an innovative approach. Still, as I began the novel, it was with a sense of irritation that the apparent positive conclusion to My Dear I Wanted To Tell You was an apparent false hope. Riley and Nadine tramp off on their honeymoon feeling too awkward to touch each other let alone consummate, Peter returns to drinking and Julia goes back to fussing around trying to make Peter love her and being hopeless with her child. Rose sits in the background and looks underused.
For my full review:
http://girlwithherheadinabook.blogspo...
The title obviously comes from David Lloyd George's speech telling the nation to make Britain a country 'fit for heroes to live'. Cue twenty years of economic instability and another world war. In focussing on the aftermath for the survivors rather than the tragic lost generation, Louisa Young takes an innovative approach. Still, as I began the novel, it was with a sense of irritation that the apparent positive conclusion to My Dear I Wanted To Tell You was an apparent false hope. Riley and Nadine tramp off on their honeymoon feeling too awkward to touch each other let alone consummate, Peter returns to drinking and Julia goes back to fussing around trying to make Peter love her and being hopeless with her child. Rose sits in the background and looks underused.
For my full review:
http://girlwithherheadinabook.blogspo...
March 26, 2020
The second in a series (My Dear, I Wanted to Tell You and Devotion) that presents an epic tale of pain brought on by the Great War, and rebirth. From the first scene, the wedding of disfigured Riley to Nadine, a saintly figure who stands by a damaged man below her station, we are gripped by tortured emotions of characters who are grappling with war’s aftermath. Riley’s commanding officer, Peter, seemingly has everything to return to: Family wealth, a wife, a son, a business empire, but is tormented by memories of men who perished under his command. Ms. Young’s portrayal of the physical and emotional plunge of Riley and Peter is memorable, perhaps most poignantly as Riley deals with perceived on-looker reactions to his facial injuries (Riley drinks from a brass straw made from a shell casing) and considers how he should present himself to the shocked, but well-meaning, public. The seeds of Riley’s recovery are sown carefully, as he gropes to find his place in his marriage, family, and productive society. Ms. Young seems well-versed in the classics, with lines from Greek tragedies borrowed here, and a memorable metaphor from a Shakespeare sonnet nicked there. She does Homer proud with character arcs from exultation to steep descent and eventual equilibrium. Between easy authenticity established by period words and setting descriptions, and moving portraits of complex emotions, this depiction of war’s all-consuming aftermath will not soon be forgotten.
Was this review helpful? I am an avid world war based fiction reader and author. You can read more of my takes at https://brodiecurtis.com/curtis-takes/.
Was this review helpful? I am an avid world war based fiction reader and author. You can read more of my takes at https://brodiecurtis.com/curtis-takes/.
June 10, 2014
“The Heroes’ Welcome” by Louise Young was my third book to read courtesy of Good Reads. It is set in 1919, after the end of WW1. Two soldiers return home, one with horrific facial wounds, one with deep mental scars. The story follows their quest for closure from the horrors of war, and their attempts to move forward.
The soldier with the facial wounds, Riley, marries his girlfriend, and after initial misunderstandings and non communication, finds contentment in married life. He finds it difficult to fine work because of his appearance, but manages to do freelance work created by himself and a friend. He has the support of his wife and her father, whose financial help he at first resents, but later appreciates. He takes on and fathers the children the mentally scars soldier, who can’t look after them.
The mentally scarred soldier, Peter, is Rileys CO. He is haunted by the past and feels guilty about the death of men under his control. He withdraws into himself, rejecting family and friends, first using drink to cope and then immersing himself in the work of Homer, finding parallels with the Odyssey and his own life. It is not until ten years later that there is a glimmer of hope for him.
It is a very powerful and moving book, reminding us that the survivors as well as those killed give cause for sorrow. The most shocking bit was when nightmare and reality become one, – it is unexpected and leaves you quite devastated.
January 8, 2015
We read 'My Dear, I Wanted to Tell You' for our book group in November, and with the Tower Poppies and other commemorations it couldn't have been more appropriate. At the end I really wanted to know what happened next for all of these tragic, flawed characters, and this sequel takes up the story in 1919, with a wedding and most of the main characters daring to hope for post-war happiness and a good future. There's nothing predictable about this second story, though, with further heartache for most. I don't want to give out any spoilers so very little abut the plot! I enjoyed this book more than the first, as it really explores deeply some of the many ways in which people were affected by the war: post-traumatic stress, physical injury, changes to society's attitudes, and even how the next generation are affected by the experiences of their parents. The characterisation is brilliant, and some quite advanced ideas are explored, such as the viewing of war through Homer's writing, yet it remains thoroughly readable throughout.
May 25, 2015
Best thing about this was that I felt I learned something. She does a good job at getting inside the traumaed mind which is odd considering how I found her italicised inner narratives of the various characters quite implausible.
I like it when authors try and do something original and different with their writing style so I feel a bit mean saying I don't think the effort quite paid off on this occasion. Also, I am conscious my criticism stems from my current writerly learning curve about narrative. A year of so ago, I'd probably have been much more accepting of Young's "telly" fast paced narrative that skims the surface until some time past the middle when, at last, we are dropped into some sort of unfolding of events, scene, setting, atmosphere and so on.
Were people really called Riley in those days? I thought that was a modern thing. Stand to be corrected if so...
Anyway, back to the good stuff, the depiction of those days, that trauma - that was really well done: intimate, original, vivid.
I like it when authors try and do something original and different with their writing style so I feel a bit mean saying I don't think the effort quite paid off on this occasion. Also, I am conscious my criticism stems from my current writerly learning curve about narrative. A year of so ago, I'd probably have been much more accepting of Young's "telly" fast paced narrative that skims the surface until some time past the middle when, at last, we are dropped into some sort of unfolding of events, scene, setting, atmosphere and so on.
Were people really called Riley in those days? I thought that was a modern thing. Stand to be corrected if so...
Anyway, back to the good stuff, the depiction of those days, that trauma - that was really well done: intimate, original, vivid.
July 3, 2014
After having read “My Dear, I wanted to tell you” by the same author and enjoyed it, I was pleased that Louisa Young had written a sequel to this book.
“The Heroes’ welcome” picks up the lives of Riley, Nadine, Julia, Peter and Rose where the first book left off. It is now March 1919 and the war has been over for 6 months. The men that survived the war have returned home but having experience such horrors life will never be the same. Nursing both physical and mental scars, each of the characters from “My Dear, I wanted to tell you” had suffered during the Great War.
I enjoyed this book, but it was also heart breaking seeing men that had given so much for their country to struggle to find their place in society again.
I would recommend that this book is only read after “My Dear, I wanted to tell you” as without reading this the book wouldn’t really mean anything.
“The Heroes’ welcome” picks up the lives of Riley, Nadine, Julia, Peter and Rose where the first book left off. It is now March 1919 and the war has been over for 6 months. The men that survived the war have returned home but having experience such horrors life will never be the same. Nursing both physical and mental scars, each of the characters from “My Dear, I wanted to tell you” had suffered during the Great War.
I enjoyed this book, but it was also heart breaking seeing men that had given so much for their country to struggle to find their place in society again.
I would recommend that this book is only read after “My Dear, I wanted to tell you” as without reading this the book wouldn’t really mean anything.
December 18, 2014
A grim look at the lives of two men who have returned from the fighting of WWI. Riley has a horribly scarred face - skin grafts and a jaw built from odd pieces. Peter's scars are internal, and he cannot get past the horrors, the blood, the screaming, the death.
This is also a look at the women in their lives. When Riley, battered of face and soul, comes home, Nadine insists that they marry as they had planned. Peter's wife, Julia, however, does not know how to cope with him, how to help him heal.
Inevitably, too, it is the story of their families. Their parents. Their siblings. Peter's cousin. All of whom feel disconnected and bewildered and unable to comfort and support as they would like.
This is the second in a proposed trilogy, and is as timely as today's headlines and as difficult to manage as today's wars.
I read this e-arc courtesy of Edelweiss.
This is also a look at the women in their lives. When Riley, battered of face and soul, comes home, Nadine insists that they marry as they had planned. Peter's wife, Julia, however, does not know how to cope with him, how to help him heal.
Inevitably, too, it is the story of their families. Their parents. Their siblings. Peter's cousin. All of whom feel disconnected and bewildered and unable to comfort and support as they would like.
This is the second in a proposed trilogy, and is as timely as today's headlines and as difficult to manage as today's wars.
I read this e-arc courtesy of Edelweiss.
January 27, 2015
Very disappointed with this follow up to My Dear I Wanted To Tell You. The war has ended and the characters are trying to get on with their lives, and yet I felt very distant from the characters. There was so much that could have been explored; Rose was destined for a medical career, in a Vera Brittain style narrative she wanted to change the world for the better after her experiences...except, she got on a train and no further chapter was devoted to her story. Peter and Riley are both dealing with mental scars, with Riley suffering from physical ones as well...except we are never in their heads, it is Julia and Nadine's struggles which are at the forefront. Whilst neither sex should be prioritised over the other there wasn't an even balance. This felt like a personal story for the author, perhaps not wanting to close on the characters she had created.
August 31, 2023
Heart-wrenching, as expected. This book reminded me of post-Covid, where people just wanted things to go back to the way they were, but they never could be exactly the same. And not everyone has the same perspective on what they just went through. For England, it is struggling to adapt to the end of wartime - now what does everyone do? The women should leave the work they were doing? The returning soldiers, if they are in one piece, are being honored everywhere, but why is it so difficult for them to get a job? Again, I think all the characters here are really well done and show true humanity and understandable reactions to horror and tragedy. It covers a shorter time span than the first book, but gives all the reality of post-war that Downton Abbey sort of glossed over after the second season.
May 26, 2014
I don't award books with five stars lightly.
I started this book with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. Excitement to be reunited with beloved characters and trepidation that they could never possibly my live up to my expectations of what they had gone on to become.
I ended this book more full of love for the characters than I thought possible and that I know I will revisit in these books again and again.
I selfishly hope that Louisa Young will go on to write of the next generation and their own lives and war.
I started this book with a mixture of excitement and trepidation. Excitement to be reunited with beloved characters and trepidation that they could never possibly my live up to my expectations of what they had gone on to become.
I ended this book more full of love for the characters than I thought possible and that I know I will revisit in these books again and again.
I selfishly hope that Louisa Young will go on to write of the next generation and their own lives and war.
April 12, 2018
I read this, because I'd very much enjoyed the first in the trilogy, My Dear, I Wanted To Tell You. I enjoyed The Heroes' Welcome, but not quite as much. It all felt a little rushed as if the author couldn't quite grasp her subject and her characters. It's not an easy read, but a good depiction of how life was for WW1 survivors in 1919.
January 17, 2016
A beautiful story, masterfully told.
February 9, 2018
No point to the story. Nothing particularly interesting happened. Boring.
March 6, 2017
Ben trovate amiche,
oggi vi parlo di un romanzo di narrativa veramente molto toccante. Si tratta de " I giorni del ritorno" di Louisa Young, edito Garzanti. Inghilterra, 1919. Soldati che ritornano in patria dal fronte, in cui hanno combattuto e vinto il nemico, in cui hanno visto sangue e sofferenza, in cui hanno perso fratelli e hanno perso sé stessi. Riley torna dalla sua fidanzata Nadine, che è pronta a sposarlo e ad amarlo, nonostante il volto devastato da ferite che gli impediscono di parlare bene e di mangiare in maniera normale. Peter torna a casa dalla moglie Julia e dal figlioletto Tom che lo attendono, speranzosi di ricominciare la vita familiare da dove l'hanno lasciata.
Riley e Nadine si sposano e decidono di cominciare a vivere la loro vita insieme da quel punto in avanti. Il passato, la guerra, il dolore e la perdita viene tutto prudentemente lasciato alle spalle, in vista di un futuro difficile ma possibile. Riley si sforza, ci prova nonostante le sue ferite, che non sono solo quelle fisiche ma anche quelle dell'anima, quelle di un uomo che ha visto troppo orrore per poter vivere ad occhi aperti e cuore leggero la fortuna di essere rimasto vivo. Peter si chiude nel suo studio a leggere Omero in compagnia dell'alcol e di un passato che non riesce a dimenticare. Un passato che non vuole dimenticare perchè si sente responsabile della perdita dei suoi uomini, si sente un fallito, si identifica con Ulisse e ne diventa ossessionato. Non regge la vista della moglie né di quel bambino che si guarda in giro con occhi sgranati rimanendo, suo malgrado, segnato dal comportamento del padre e dalle nevrosi della madre. Due soldati che hanno combattuto insieme e che insieme sono tornati a casa, due uomini che sono rimasti feriti nel corpo e nell'anima ma che reagiscono in maniera diversa alle loro ferite invisibili. Riley riesce ad emergere dal fantasma delle trincee grazie alla moglie Nadine e alla sua voglia di darle una vita degna. Riesce a superare il disagio della sua menomazione fisica e a fare l'amore con lei, dopo tanto tempo, perchè vede riflesso negli occhi della sua donna l'amore e l'ammirazione che lei prova per lui. Peter al contrario rimane sepolto sotto al corpo di un soldato in quella trincea che ha permesso al suo corpo di tornare, ma non al suo spirito. Peter vorrebbe essere morto insieme ai suoi uomini e non si rende conto che sta finendo per uccidere il suo matrimonio e la sua famiglia. Reazioni diverse allo stesso dolore che daranno vita ad una storia davvero emozionante e piena di pathos. Le donne di questo romanzo sono la vera forza motrice della vita in sé.
Nadine, Julia e Rose ( cugina di Peter), sono il simbolo di tutte quelle donne che hanno atteso che i loro uomini tornassero dal fronte, rimboccandosi le maniche ( almeno nel caso di Nadine e Rose) e andando avanti nella speranza di poterli riabbracciare.
Accolgono i loro uomini tornati per miracolo e cercano di salvare la loro anima lacerata, il loro cuore ferito, come meglio possono. Non è un romanzo per tutti, lo comprendo, ma è davvero meraviglioso e quindi lo consiglio. E' una storia difficile, la sofferenza è vivida e prende vita come un vero personaggio in carne ed ossa. Ma è la speranza la vera protagonista e si concretizza con la forza di Riley, la comprensione di Nadine e la perseveranza di Rose. Mancano i dialoghi, sono pochi e ridotti all'essenziale, ma non se ne sente la reale mancanza grazie ai pensieri espressi dai protagonisti. In fondo tutta la storia è incentrata sul percorso introspettivo dei personaggi, sulla loro evoluzione o involuzione in un periodo difficile per tutti. Può risultare lento in alcuni punti ma l'intensità emotiva è veramente palpabile. Potrebbe sembrare un romanzo atto a darci uno scorcio di quel periodo, ma in realtà l'argomento che tratta è sempre attuale perchè le guerre non sono mai finite. Gli uomini che tornano oggi dalle guerre, hanno gli stessi occhi vuoti degli uomini di allora. I problemi che riscontrano oggi, come l'inserimento nella società dopo gli infortuni, il malessere e i disturbi post traumatici, sono gli stessi di allora. Sono rimasta coinvolta nel dolore dei protagonisti pensando a quanto sia attuale anche oggi. I soldati possono tornare in patria da vincitori o da perdenti ma rimangono comunque degli eroi spezzati, distrutti e persi. Posso solo ringraziare la Garzanti per avermi dato la possibilità di leggere questa storia e consigliare a voi, una volta tanto, una lettura diversa da quelle a cui siete abituate e che preferite, ma che vi lascerà dentro emozioni forti e spunti di riflessione.
Buona lettura
March 28, 2021
Il romanzo inizia con un matrimonio. E' il mese di marzo del 1919. A Londra la guerra è finita. Gli uomini e le donne, civili o ex militari, cercano di riappropriarsi delle proprie vite.
E' proprio per questo che Riley, capitano dell'esercito in congedo e Nadine, ex infermiera al fronte, decidono di cogliere l'attimo e sposarsi senza neanche comunicarlo alle proprie famiglie.
Nonostante la guerra sia finita, Riley ne porta i segni evidenti sul suo corpo...
Che dire di questo romanzo? Ti entra piano piano nella pelle. Ti cattura fin dalle prime pagine e non ti lascia più. Impari a conoscere i personaggi, a comprenderli. Sviluppi una certa empatia con ognuno di loro. Difficile non sentirsi coinvolti dalle loro vicende.
E' commovente, è drammatico, a tratti disarmante, è potente, te lo porti dietro per un po', anche dopo averlo finito di leggere.
Ho particolarmente amato il personaggio di Riley. Come si fa a non amare quel personaggio? La sua forza, la sua determinazione, il suo coraggio, è un portatore sano di speranza. Nonostante la guerra lo avesse oltraggiato nel corpo e ferito nello spirito, ha lottato strenuamente per riappropriarsi del suo futuro perché, nonostante tutto, "la vita continua". Riley però, non è l'unico personaggio forte di questa storia e ognuno di loro ha molto da dire. Insomma, consiglio vivamente la lettura di questo romanzo.
E' proprio per questo che Riley, capitano dell'esercito in congedo e Nadine, ex infermiera al fronte, decidono di cogliere l'attimo e sposarsi senza neanche comunicarlo alle proprie famiglie.
Nonostante la guerra sia finita, Riley ne porta i segni evidenti sul suo corpo...
Che dire di questo romanzo? Ti entra piano piano nella pelle. Ti cattura fin dalle prime pagine e non ti lascia più. Impari a conoscere i personaggi, a comprenderli. Sviluppi una certa empatia con ognuno di loro. Difficile non sentirsi coinvolti dalle loro vicende.
E' commovente, è drammatico, a tratti disarmante, è potente, te lo porti dietro per un po', anche dopo averlo finito di leggere.
Ho particolarmente amato il personaggio di Riley. Come si fa a non amare quel personaggio? La sua forza, la sua determinazione, il suo coraggio, è un portatore sano di speranza. Nonostante la guerra lo avesse oltraggiato nel corpo e ferito nello spirito, ha lottato strenuamente per riappropriarsi del suo futuro perché, nonostante tutto, "la vita continua". Riley però, non è l'unico personaggio forte di questa storia e ognuno di loro ha molto da dire. Insomma, consiglio vivamente la lettura di questo romanzo.
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