The Underground Library

Jennifer Ryan hooked me with her first WWII novel, The Chilbury Ladies' Choir (See my post of 12/27/2017.) and I've looked forward eagerly to each new stand-alone book.  Her latest is The Underground Library (#1,215).

Here Ms. Ryan interweaves the stories of three young women who find themselves in the London neighborhood of Bethnal Green at the outbreak of WWII.  Katie's family owns a large house on the Park, and her life is seemingly set as she spends the final summer working at the Bethnal Green Library before she heads off to university in the fall.  Juliet arrives to take up her new post as Deputy Director of the Bethnal Green Library, escaping her small country town and her controlling parents.  Sofie is a young German Jewish refugee sent by her abusive employer to the library to find him a book of maps.

Each chapter is told from a different point of view, tracing the impact the Bethnal Green Library has on each of them, even as it is bombed by the Nazis and subsequently moved down into the London Underground for safety, to serve the community which gathers each night to escape the bombs themselves.  It's an engrossing tale.

In the Acknowledgements, Ms. Ryan mentions Simon Parkin's fascinating non-fiction work The Island of Extraordinary Captives.  I came across this book in my own library recently, and both my husband and I read it with a great deal of interest.  I hope Jennifer Ryan's shout out will encourage people to read it who might not otherwise have ever heard of it.  (See my post of 10/31/2023.)

As always, highly recommended.

The Silence In Her Eyes

After hearing author Armando Lucas Correa speak about his latest novel, The Silence In Her Eyes (#1,214), I knew I wanted to read it.  Known for his historical novels, Silence was a pet project for him.  It's a thriller centered on a young woman who suffers from a neurological condition called akinetopsia.  Leah has motion blindness.  Although she can see, the image remains still until she blinks her eyes.  Much can change around her in the time it takes her to blink.

Leah's mother has recently died, leaving her alone in an enormous pre-war apartment.  When a young woman in the throes of a nasty divorce moves in next door, Leah can hear them fighting.  After Leah befriends Alice, everything changes for her; someone comes into her apartment, leaving a strong and distinctive scent behind.  No one believes her, though, even when she senses someone watching and following her...

In this cat-and-mouse thriller, it really is a question of who is preying on whom.

Twisty, it certainly kept me guessing until the end!

Women of Good Fortune

The cover blurb for Sophie Wan's novel Women of Good Fortune (#1,213) calls the book "Joyous, indulgent, immensely clever."  While I might agree with the "immensely clever" comment, I would never call this book either "joyous" or "indulgent".  

Three women in Shanghai have been friends for years.  None of them are happy with their lives as the book opens.  Jane is married, but hates her looks, herself and her husband, not necessarily in that order.  Rina lived and was educated in the US.  She is unmarried, but at an age in China where her strivings in the corporate world are guaranteed to take her nowhere.  She stays in Shanghai to take care of her ailing parents.  Lulu, the third member of the trio, has seemingly hit the jackpot.  She is about to marry the heir of one of the wealthiest families in Shanghai.  Why isn't she happier about the life of luxury she is about to enter?  Could it be because of all the demands her own family is placing on her?

The action of the novel revolves around the plot these three women devise to steal the millions of yuans which will be gifted to the happy couple at the lavish wedding ceremony attended by the cream of Shanghainese society.  Lulu can head off to Thailand during the ceremony unwed as she's always dreamed, Jane can have her plastic surgery, and Rina?  Rina will do what she always does best - organize and take care of everyone else's needs.

Will the story have a happy ending?  Not the way these three pictured it.

The Wedding Date

The Wedding Date (#1,212) by Jasmine Guillory is one of her earlier books, but I snatched it up when I saw it on display at my local library.  I loved one of her more recent books, By The Book.  It was one of the most enjoyable romances I've read in years.

I still enjoyed The Wedding Date, but I think there was a lot less plot, and waaayyy more sex!  I realize that's what publishers think sells books, but for me, it's the story behind how the couple got there.  There was a definite "meet cute" here, lots of food, and plenty of anguishing about a less than perfect body for the heroine to keep me reading, though, even if I did skip over the sex scenes to get to the good parts.  Oh, and did I mention that this is an interracial romance?

I have a feeling I'm going to enjoy her later works more, but I'm still glad to have discovered Jasmine Guillory.

The Ninth Man

If you've read Steve Berry's popular Cotton Malone thriller series, you'll be familiar with Luke Daniels, a spin-off character from those books in The Ninth Man (#1,211).  Berry has co-authored this book with Grant Blackwood, but they've done a seamless job blending their writing into an interesting plot with several unexpected twists.

Luke Daniels, former Army Ranger and nephew of a former US president, is relaxing in London after completing his latest assignment for the Magellan Billet when he receives an urgent text from a former colleague.  When Luke arrives at the Belgian home of Jillian Stein's grandfather, he finds himself in the middle of a fire storm.  Her grandfather has been murdered, and those responsible will not stop until they retrieve a rifle hidden away by Benji Stein.  Who is after it, and now them, and for what purpose?  The stakes are life and death in this cat and mouse game involving a controversial day in American history.

Okay, I did not see the end of this one coming!  Tense thriller, with a promise of at least two more to come from this writing team.  Can't wait.

The Reading List

The Reading List (#1,210) by Sara Nisha Adams is a wonderful book.  It contains not one, but two reading lists within its pages.  

In the neighborhood around Wembley Stadium in London, a number of isolated people come across neat, hand-written lists of book titles, with the heading "In Case You Need It". Although they don't know it yet, they do have a common connection: the local library, perennially in danger of being closed down by the Civic Council.  As each person embarks on their own journey by reading through the list, we meet them in their struggles and heartaches and see how the act of reading lifts them out of themselves and into a greater community.  But the question remains: who wrote this particular reading list, and why?  We do find out in the end in a thoroughly satisfying conclusion.

Maybe I related to this book because I've read all but one of the novels on the "In Case You Need It" list.  I plan to remedy that omission in the near future.  This is a debut novel from Ms. Adams.  I hope we hear more from this talented writer.

Act Like A Lady, Think Like A Lord

Hmm.  Not sure how I feel about Celeste Connally's Regency mystery Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Lord (#1,209).  The cover blurb promises "Bridgerton meets Agatha Christie".  I can't tell whether or not the comparison to Bridgerton is fair or not, since I've neither read nor seen either series.  As for Agatha Christie - not exactly in her league.  It's easy to spot the ending well in advance.

The premise is that the lords in Lady Petra Forsythe's social circle are sharing the name of a gentleman who will, for a price, arrange for the troublesome women in the peer's life to be taken to an estate in the country "for her health".  Most are never seen again, and some are rumored to have died.  One of Lady Petra's friends has been removed thusly from London society when she succumbs to her depression.  Based on overheard snippets at a ball, Lady Petra doubts very much that the story of her death is true, so she investigates, putting her directly in the crosshairs of the villain of the piece.

And of course she falls right into the trap set for her in her very own house, no less!  And of course the handsome hunk comes to her rescue.  But wait!  The dangling thread about the cause of Lady Petra's fiance's death in a fall down stairs shortly before their wedding is used to cast doubt three years later on Lady Petra's childhood friend and new main squeeze.  I guess there will be more, but I won't be reading any sequels.  Sorry, Ms. Connally.  I much prefer Georgette Heyer.

The Year of the Locust

I had to keep lugging the 800 page copy of The Year of the Locust (#1,208) around with me because it was so hard to put down.  It may have been a long wait for Terry Hayes' next thriller after I Am Pilgrim, but I think it was definitely worthwhile.

Kane, his latest protagonist, is a Denied Area Access Agent working for the CIA - the most stealthy of spies sent in country against all odds to carry out their missions.  In this book, he is up against the faceless Abu Muslim al-Tundra, determined to destroy anyone not part of his fundamentalist Islamic sect by any means possible.  His methods are extreme and frighteningly plausible and his reach is global.

This time Kane has a bigger stake in the game when he's sent in - he's seen Abu Muslim al-Tundra's face, and he is leaving his partner behind on this mission.  He's also seen what the future can be if al-Tundra succeeds.

The plot does take a distinct turn towards sci-fi towards the end, but bear with it; the conclusion is oh-so-satisfying!

Horse

After reading Horse (#1,207), I am reminded of why Geraldine Brooks is one of my favorite authors.  In it she interweaves several stories: a painting of a thoroughbred horse discarded in a curbside pile; Theo, the art student who discovers it and is determined to track down its provenance; Jess, the manager of a lab at the Smithsonian Museum who helps him and is tasked with helping a British researcher with a skeleton in the Smithsonian attic; and Jarrett, the enslaved boy who grows up with the horse and bonds with him indelibly.

The horse, it turns out, is real.  Lexington was one of the finest thoroughbreds ever raised and raced in the United States in the mid-nineteenth century.  He sired many prize-winning horses, including Preakness, for whom one of the Triple Crown Races is named.

It's also the story of racism, both before, during and after the Civil War, as well is in the contemporary love story.

The story does jump back and forth in time, and the plot is presented from many points of view.  I found it absolutely fascinating.  I've always had an interest in horse racing, but I learned so much in reading this book that it made me realize just how little I did know.  It's a piece of American history not many know about.

Since I had to read it for my book club, I couldn't wait for the hard copy book to become available to me, so this is the first novel I've read on my Kindle.  Was I ever grateful for the dictionary function built into it as I encountered lots of unfamiliar vocabulary!  

This was a great book on so many different levels.  It provided plenty of fodder (pardon the horsey pun) for book club discussion and was a universal hit with my group.  

The Frozen River

In her latest historical fiction, Ariel Lawhon has taken the diaries of real-life Maine midwife Martha Ballard and used her entries as the basis for an intriguing murder mystery set in the small town of Hallowell, Maine during one brutal winter when the Kennebec River froze solid from November to April in the late 1780s.  

The Frozen River (#1,206) is an engaging read as the fictional Martha stands by a victim of a rape by two men while her husband was away.  When one of the men's body is found frozen in the river, Martha is called in to observe the body.  In her role as midwife, she has standing with the court to testify on certain matters. But when she testifies the death was the result of murder, she creates a furor in the town.  It soon becomes clear that the other powerful man in town accused of the rape is determined to get his revenge on anyone who dares to speak out against him.  That includes the Ballard family and their lumber mill.

It is told in such a way that you want to read just one more chapter...

A minor nit about some of the anachronisms that creep into the book, but most people probably won't even notice them.  It certainly doesn't prevent it from being a well-told story about a remarkable woman who managed to leave her mark on history.  Recommended.

Chesapeake Requiem - A Year With the Watermen of Vanishing Tangier Island

In Chesapeake Requiem - A year With the Watermen of Vanishing Tangier Island (#1,205) journalist Earl Swift spent a year living on Tangier Island, set in the Virginia area of Chesapeake Bay.  Tangier has been in the news recently because it is vanishing into the Bay, large chunks of it washing off its shoreline as the island simultaneously sinks.  What will the islanders who have lived there for many generations do as their land shrinks and the crabs and oysters that provide their livelihood become scarcer and scarcer? And there are fewer and fewer opportunities for their young folks.

Mr. Swift tells their stories in a sympathetic way only possible by becoming one of their community.  He crabbed with them, sat in their "Situation Room" where the men gathered to discuss everything, attended their church services and ate with them.

The islanders have appealed for help to the Army Corps of Engineers, hoping that they would build a breakwater to stem the corrosion, but the wheels of government grind so slowly that likely if the Corps do decide to reinforce part of the island, it will only benefit a potential wildlife preserve, not the people.

Mr. Swift puts the reader right in the middle of island life, and by the time you have finished reading this compelling book, you will feel that you know many of these folks.  Right now, the only thing you can do is stayed tuned to the news to see what will happen to them.

If you live in a coastal area anywhere in America, this book should be mandatory reading.

Clytemnestra

Costanza Casati has chosen a much-reviled character from Greek mythology to base her debut novel on: Clytemnestra (#1,204).  Here she has retold this story of wrongs and revenge with a sympathetic eye in a compelling narrative.  

Raised in Sparta, Clytemnestra eventually becomes the wife of Agamemnon, leader of the Greeks in the Trojan War.  His brother Menelaus is married to her sister, Helen.  But in order to sail off to Troy, Agamemnon sacrifices his oldest daughter Iphigenia to raise a favorable wind.  Clytemnestra is devastated, and vows to rule Mycenae in his absence.  It gives her plenty of time to plot her revenge.

Her story isn't pretty, but is typical of the way women were disregarded in the ancient world.  You'll recognize the names of most of the players in this book, but Ms. Casati helps to straighten out the often tangled relationships.

It's a big book, but I wanted to find out what would happen next, and how Clytemnestra would react.  It's reawakened my interest in Greek mythology.  I can't wait to read The Iliad.

The Secret Book of Flora Lea

I read Patti Callahan Henry's novel The Secret Book of Flora Lea (#1,203) because she will be a guest author at our upcoming BookMania!.  If it hadn't been for that, I never would have bothered to finish it.  

The premise is that a young woman working at a rare book shop in London in 1960 receives a first edition  children's book from America with its accompanying original illustrations.  The whole package is expected to fetch a pretty price for the shop's owners.  Hazel Linden is convinced that the book's title, Whisperwood and the River of Stars means that her six-year old sister, lost many years ago during WWII  when they were evacuated to a village on the banks of the Thames, is still alive.  Whisperwood was their own private world, not to be shared with anyone.  So how could the author have stumbled upon this title.  Could it be Flora Lea?  Hazel is so determined to find out the truth that she steals the book.

Personally, I found Hazel to be an incredibly selfish and self-centered character.  She has blinders on when it comes to Flora Lea.  Her loss is Hazel's fault alone, therefore, only she can make it right.  Blah, blah, blah.  Not a fan of Ms. Callahan's work, but plenty of others seem to like it.  Every book has its reader, after all.

Mrs. Plansky's Revenge

It's an all-too-familiar story: elderly person is scammed by fraudsters claiming to be a grandchild in trouble.  "Please send money now!"  

In Spencer Quinn's new novel, Mrs. Plansky's Revenge, (#1,202) Mrs. Plansky is a wealthy Florida widow.  After her husband's death, she relocated to a smaller, comfortable condo and is slowly picking up the threads of her life.  Her adult children regard her as an endless piggybank for their latest "business" ventures.  Since they're her kids, she always obliges.  So when she receives a late night call purporting to be from her grandson Will, she hands over her bank information along with her password to send him the modest sum he has requested.  But of course, it's not Will.  The next morning, Mrs. Plansky gets calls from her local banker and her long-time financial advisor.  All of her funds are gone.  The FBI arrives on site, only to advise her to give up hope of ever recovering any of her money.  Most people would cave at this point, but not Mrs. Plansky!  She sets out to track down the perpetrators where they live and get back what belongs to her. 

Simultaneously, Quinn tells the story of the two teens in Romania caught up in something much bigger than themselves and where lives are at stake.  When their paths cross Mrs. Plansky's, the game is on!

A highly entertaining story that has you rooting for characters on both sides of the equation.  If only the real-life outcomes for actual victims of these crimes turned out so well...

Must admit, though, that I did not like the cover of the large print edition I read.  The illustration of Mrs. Plansky makes her look way too bland for the tough cookie she is!  Also, you would have no idea that she ventured off to Europe on her own from the ultra generic buildings in the background.  Just saying I think the book deserved a better cover!

Arsenic and Adobo

Darn, I was looking foward to reading Arsenic and Adobo (#1,201) by Mia P. Manansala.  It was supposed to be a new culinary cozy mystery series.  I didn't need the lecture on political correctness.  I gave up after a few pages in.  Consider me "triggered".

A Rip Through Time

I first read Kelley Armstrong's time travel Victorian mystery The Poisoner's Ring.  I liked it so much that I hunted down the first book in this series, A Rip Through Time (#1,200).  And yes, the Rip in the title is a nod to Jack the Ripper.  

Mallory Atkinson is in Edinburgh to spend time with her beloved grandmother as she lies dying.  But since there is nothing Mallory can actually do, she tries to run off some of her stress by jogging at night.  It is her misfortune that her training as a police detective in Vancouver leads her down an alleyway following sounds of an attack.  What she sees is a young blonde woman being strangled just before she is attacked herself.  She falls into that other woman's body.  Mallory wakes in an upper-middle class Victorian household where she is employed as the maid Catriona, whom she last saw in the alley.

How she got there, and how she can return to her own time are not the only problems Mallory faces in this new environment.  It's all very entertaining, with a twisty mystery added in, to boot. Recommended.

Dirty Thirty

Hard to believe that Dirty Thirty (#1,199) is Janet Evanovich's thirtieth Stephanie Plum novel!  And she still has the power to surprise us!  

On-and-off boyfriend Joe Morelli is away testifying in a trial, so Stephanie is dog-sitting Bob.  She loves Bob, but let's just say that he's not the best-behaved canine, often leaving chaos and debris in his wake.  Stephanie is running low on money, but when she's out chasing down skips, Bob's a problem.  So when someone stops by the Bail Bonds Office and asks for Stephanie personally for a side job, she decides to look into it.  

It turns out to be a botched robbery in a well-established Trenton jewelry store.  At first it seems routine, but things begin to turn ugly when both Lula and Stephanie's apartments are fire-bombed.  Oh, the horror of having Lula as a roommate!  When Ranger's security firm has a tie to the robbery case, and Ranger starts taking a more personal interest in Stephanie, things begin to heat up on all fronts.  What's a girl to do?

Reliably fun and I can't wait to see what happens next!

Emperor of Rome

I have been wanting to read Mary Beard's non-fiction work Emperor of Rome (#1,198) ever since I read the first review of it.  It did not disappoint.  Rather than one consecutive biography after another of Roman emperors from Julius Caesar (not technically the first emperor, but he might as well have been) through Alexander Severus, Ms. Beard discusses what gave the emperor his power, real and perceived; how and where he lived, what his day-to-day responsibilities might have been, how he entertained himself, and how he was in turn entertained.  How did he die, and what happened next?

It was all very interesting, and presented a way of looking at things that I had not thought about before.  Why were there so many statutes of the emperor all over the Roman world?  Why did the statutes themselves look so much alike, no matter who they were purported to be?  What was acceptable for the emperor to do, and what kind of behavior was frowned upon by the Roman elite - his peers, more or less.

In the roughly two-hundred-and-fifty-year period Ms. Beard covers, the empire and the role of the emperor himself were relatively stable.  Not peaceful, but there were certain expectations of the succession of men who became emperor.  After Alexander Severus, this all changed, but that's beyond the scope of this work.

One thing I particularly enjoyed about this book were the copious illustrations throughout the text and a handsome selection of colored plates.  It's always fun to look at something and think "I've seen that!"  If you've never had the good fortune to travel abroad, it certainly helps to visualize what the author is discussing in her text.  She also provides an interesting timeline at the end, and recommendations for further reading on each chapter, along with places you can visit related to that chapter.

If you're a history buff, especially with an interest in the ancient world, Emperor of Rome should be on your bookshelf!

In The Hot Zone

I read Kevin Sites' non-fiction book In The Hot Zone (#1,197) in preparation for BookMania!, where he will be one of the panelists.  Although we will be discussing his first novel The Ocean Above Us, I wanted to get a feel for his writing.  This was harrowing.  

After being embedded with a combat unit in Afghanistan, he witnessed and videotaped the shooting of a wounded insurgent in a mosque, Mr. Sites ran afoul of both the military and his own NBC network by taping what he felt was important to document.  He parted ways with the network and subsequently proposed a project to Yahoo!; to spend an entire year covering war-torn areas all around the globe.  He interviewed combatants and innocents in these Hot Zones, documenting the effects of war not just on the soldiers, but on the civilians and their environment.

He came away from the experience shaken and angry.  Not just by the fact that so much violence and destruction was taking place in so many different places around the world, but that Americans have mainly chosen not to see or acknowledge it.

Even though he undertook the project almost twenty years ago, in 2005, so much of what he wrote then could be ripped from today's headlines.  So little has changed.

Assistant To The Villain

I really think Hannah Nicole Maehrer's fantasy novel, Assistant To The Villain (#1,196) should be titled Assistant To The Villain Part I.  I was amused by the goings-on in the book until I got almost to the end and realized that it couldn't possibly be brought to a satisfying end in the number of pages remaining.  I was right.  Cliffhanger.  Aargh!

Will I read the sequel(s) when they come out?  Probably not.  I went into it with the expectation that this was a self-contained book.  That's what I had the time to read.  Not going to make that mistake again.  Can I also mention that the repeated use of the verb "busted" instead of "burst" annoyed me no end?  That's just me being picky, but at this point, why not?

If you choose to read Assistant To The Villain, at least go into it with the knowledge it's going to be a bigger investment of your time than a single book.

Journey On The James

Journey On The James (#1,195) by Earl Swift is background reading for as I prepare for the upcoming BookMania author event.  It also marks a first for me!  It's the very first book I've read on my brand-new Kindle which I got for Christmas.  I have to admit I really, really miss being able to see the colorful book covers, but the Kindle does have its conveniences.  For instance, I would not have been able to borrow Journey On The James from my local library in paper format, but they do have electronic versions of a number of books I have been wanting to read, so I'm sure I'll get more than my money's worth from this excellent gift.

Anyway, back to the book.  It's a non-fiction book based on a series of articles journalist Earl Swift filed in 1998 with his Virginia newspaper as he traveled from the very headwaters of the James (or the Jackson River as it starts out as a trickle...)  all the way to the mouth of the mighty James at Hampton Roads.  He was aided and abetted by photojournalist Ian Martin who provided the Volvo for the many portages and camping equipment necessary over the course of following the river.

He relates his journey with humor and plenty of historical anecdotes.  I found myself stopping often to Google for photos of many of the places he describes, both natural sites and structures.  Much of what he found was discouraging about the state of the river itself and the way it is being polluted, but there's encouraging news here, too.

It was an interesting read, and I would especially recommend it to anyone within easy driving distance of the James along its long course.  I'm sure there have been many changes in the quarter century since he wrote his book.  I wonder how Earl Swift would judge the state of the river today?

Up On The Woof Top

Up On The Woof Top (#1,194) by Spencer Quinn is, I promise, the wagging tail end of my holiday reading!  Two of my favorite mystery characters, Chet and Bernie, are on the case of a missing reindeer named Rudy.

It all begins when Chet is approached by a famous writer's personal assistant Chaz - but of course, Bernie has to do the talking since Chet the Jet is a dog.  It seems Dame Ariadne Carlisle, author of multiple best-selling mysteries, all with a Christmas theme, has lost her favorite reindeer and her writing mojo.  Can the Little Detective Agency help?  It means a trip to Kringle Ranch in Colorado where the tree tops glisten and it's always Christmas.  When Chaz is found unconscious in a deep canyon, the Ghost of Christmas Past in the form of an unsolved cold case murder keeps Chet and Bernie on the case.

Meanwhile, Bernie's circumstances (and of course, Chet's!) are about to take a turn for the better, provided they survive their trip to the mountains at Christmas.

Always so much fun to read these books from Chet's unique perspective!

What You Are Looking For Is In The Library

What You are Looking For Is In The Library (#1,193) is certainly well named!  This book by Michiko Aoyama was translated into English by Alison Watts after becoming a huge best seller in Japan.  It's an interconnected series of stories about people in a Tokyo neighborhood who all stumble, for a variety of reasons, into their local Community House.  They are all stuck in their own lives and are searching for something, but none of the characters knows exactly what that might be.

Until they meet the librarian of the Community House Library.  Sayuri Komachi produces a list of the books each of the characters asks for to follow up on a class at the Community House, but on each printout there is a totally unexpected and unrelated title.  Why has Ms. Komachi given them this particular title, along with a tiny, felted bonus gift she has made to go with it?

As they read their suggested titles, things begin to become clearer for each person, and they find, much to their surprise, that what they were looking for was at the library for them.

It's charming, touching and relatable.  No wonder this book was such a hit in Japan!  You'll find your own time well spent perusing this novel.

A Farewell To Arms

My New Years resolution is to read more of the classic literature I've somehow missed.  Starting off with my book club we read Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell To Arms (#1,193).  I know after reading it that I will never, ever be a Hemingway fan.  I saw that it was an NEA Big Read selection, and their intro to the book says "it would be hard to find a more tender or rapturous love story than A Farewell To Arms."  I certainly beg to differ.  

If you've never read it either, the plot boils down to an American who drives an ambulance for the Italian army during World War I who meets a British nurse. The war is going badly for the Italians, and Frederic is wounded.  After convalescing from a mortar shell wound in Milan, where Catherine has come to nurse him, the pair wind up escaping to Switzerland after a disastrous Italian Army retreat from the Alps.  Theirs is not to be a happy ending, however.

When Hemingway is describing the action of the war - his work driving the ambulances through the treacherous countryside, the chaos of the Italian retreat from the Alps, the couple's efforts to find a safe haven, it's easy to become engrossed in the book.  But the central part of the plot is the relationship between Frederic Henry and Catherine Barkley.  Personally, I don't think Hemingway could possibly make his female characters sound more stupid or wooden.  I think calling Catherine one-dimensional is way too generous.  The only reason their relationship goes behind simple sexual satisfaction for Frederic is that when he is wounded, he attaches to Catherine like a limpet, just as Hemingway did with his nurse in WWI in real life.  She's pregnant, but so what?  Frederic has absolutely no attachment to the child, nor is he upset when it dies.  In fact, he resents the fact that the child killed his mother.  So out into the rain he walks, and life rolls on as long as grandfather keeps sending those generous checks every month.

I didn't find either of the main characters admirable.  They did not act out of moral conviction.  Events just sort of happened to Frederic.  I suppose some see this attitude towards life freeing, but it's just not my cup of tea.  Oh, and did I mention that I absolutely hated the cover on the edition I read?  It's surprising to me that on this brutalist cover that it is Catherine who fills the foreground, not Frederic.  Why is that?  I'll consider this my own Farewell To Hemingway.