My Rating: 4/5 Stars
Goodreads Summary: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44107480-lovely-war
I think that this will easily be one of my favorite historical fiction novels because of the lovely intertwining of mythology with history. The story being narrated by Greek Gods is a genius idea. It gives this higher view of the storylines and allows us to see these characters from an outside perspective. The distance from the characters somehow added more depth to the story.
I do wish that in the end, we got at least one chapter from the direct perspective of these four characters we followed. I think it would have added a bit more of a twist to the writing.
The way music is described in this book is just beautifully done. As someone who practiced an instrument for much of their childhood, I really appreciated the amount of love and passion in the beautifully strung sentences Berry used to describe music. I think it was in the descriptions of music where the writing was at its peak and the most lyrical.
My favorite chapters in this book are those narrated by Hades. It was a chilling experience to read about death before, during, and after it happens. I loved Berry’s inclusion of Hades because not only did it add to the heavy tone, it also managed to add some light and perspective on the beginning and end of each character’s story line. It was a well done artistic touch.
I think that the most interesting thing about Berry’s writing is her character development. The characters start out in the beginning of their stories one way and end on a completely different note in the end. I think that the author’s choice to concentrate on the character development aspect of the story played a big role in their intent to depict how much war plays a role when it comes to love and how much love plays a role when it comes to war.
It’s just interesting to look back at these four characters at the end of the book and see how they started out. If I had to pick the most dynamic character in the beginning, it would have either been Aubrey or Collette. Aubrey and Collette’s backgrounds are much more tragic and loaded with horrible discrimination, violence, loss, and differences that make you love them a bit more.
I wouldn’t have thought I would have picked Hazel. In the beginning, Hazel was a bit vanilla as a quiet British girl who played piano and fell in love with a soon to be soldier. Her storyline with James wasn’t as interesting as Aubrey and Collette’s storyline. James was also a bit vanilla for me in the beginning. He was sweet, they both were, but Aubrey and Collete brough the fire and sass.
The second half of this story FLIPPED my thoughts completely. Hazel grew, and by grew, I mean she GREW in this story. She raised her voice, took charge, took care, and fought for the people she loved and for what she believed in. She fought for herself and I fell in love with her storyline with James just as fast as I did initially with Aubrey and Collette.
James too hardened and we really got to see how much war affected the sweet young man in the beginning, not just physically but mentally. That leads me to another aspect of Berry’s writing that I really appreciated.
She really touched a lot of different aspects of WW1. She discussed how the world was exploding in racial discrimination/segregation/violence, mental health, and she even briefly touched upon the illness that took many lives in the early 1900’s.
This story follows two couples, but I also loved how we got to see love in different forms whether it was between the family of these characters or those they’ve lost in war. One non-romantic relationship I loved was Hazel and Collette. I loved how they supported each other when they needed it. It was all the right girl love I need in a book.
As much as I loved this book and wanted to give it 5 stars, I felt like the last third of the book really let me down.
It was as though the elements that I thought spiced up the book and made it gripping just faded out in the end. It felt like towards the end, the author just FORGOT about Aubrey and Collette. In my opinion, it was their story line that really made me emotionally invested in this book. It took Aubrey Edwards’ entrance into the plot for me to care about Hazel and appreciate her story line more. I felt really put down over how Collette and Aubrey’s storyline was just rushed over in the end like a second thought.
I just wanted more from them. An interracial couple coming back to a heavily racist and segregated America is a big deal. Berry did discuss this and gave insight into some of the trouble they faced but I felt like it wasn’t enough. I wanted to know more about them.
There were so many elements in this story, the involvement of the Greek Gods, Aphrodite’s reasoning for telling the stories, the important discussions on race and war and love… there was just a lot. Most of the time, I think they played together very well but now, I’m wondering if maybe it was a bit too much to wrap up in the end and lead to things feeling rushed or for me to feel like that personally?
I just thought that in the beginning and middle, there was tension, so much tension in the chapters over what would unfold. The tension mirrored the war setting and the racial problems Aubrey faced. But as the end neared, the tension over the war took focus and the tension that was once there regarding Aubrey’s situation diminished significantly for me.
Aubrey and Collette’s storyline at the end was glossed over, their troubles as a couple, and Aubrey’s life long struggle of living as a black man in a divided America was simply discussed. It didn’t have that same tension that expressed the levity of Aubrey’s individual situation and Aubrey and Collette’s relationship as an interracial couple.
I personally felt like that lack of levity was an injustice to the Aubrey I fell in love with in the beginning/middle of the story.
In addition to the ending feeling rushed, I didn’t like how the whole Aphrodite and Hephaestus story line resolved. I didn’t really understand the resolution of their storyline because I didn’t understand Aphrodite’s reasoning for telling these stories. I think that this could have been resolved by having more chapters with Hephaestus as a direct narrator. I know he’s supposed to be the one listening to the stories and playing the role of the judge, but I think that his voice would have made the closing scene with Aphrodite and him much more clear. That being said, my confusion maybe a byproduct of me just being stupid and not connecting the dots lol.
On a smaller note, I think that James’ chapters in the beginning were a bit hard to get into, especially when he joined the war. There were a lot of names being thrown around, people whose first names were the same as other people’s last names. And the first name and last names of people were used interchangeably so I kept getting confused.
In conclusion, I hope that you do pick up this book because I did genuinely enjoy it. This book had me giggling, swooning, and crying which I always love in a book. It’s also rich in history but not to the point where you feel like you’re reading a textbook. It looks like Julie Berry did a lot of research and work for this book regarding the historical aspect. The end of the book features some of the research that went into this plot and I’m really happy that the author left some of that information there. I just wish we got a bit more of Aubrey and Collette towards the end and that the ending didn’t feel all that rushed.
As always, these are just my opinions. Everyone interprets things differently and maybe you didn’t feel like the ending was rushed or don’t agree with my opinions and that’s okay!
Let me know if you’ve read this book and what you thought of it!