Purefoy kept throwing; kept throwing. He threw for weeks, for months. At some stage he was given proper grenades and a helmet, though they all learnt to piss on a handkerchief to breathe through long before gas masks came around. One night he saw Captain Harper flying across the sky like a whirling starfish before shattering into a flaming shell crater, and he put the sight in that special part of his brain he would never go to again, fed it through the greedy slot in the forever unopenable door. His thoughts jumped like fleas, like drops of water on a hot plate, uncatchable, inexplicable.
(from My Dear I Wanted to Tell You, pages 46-47)
I’m going to have such a hard time picking my list of the best books I read this year if I keep adding to the list of contenders, but here’s another one that simply cannot be ignored. My Dear I Wanted to Tell You by Louisa Young is a haunting tale of love and war set in England and France during World War I, full of descriptions that are both beautiful and horrifying.
Young centers her story on two young couples. Being hit by a snowball as a young boy forever changes the life of working-class Riley Purefoy, whose chance meeting with the upper-class Waveney family and an artist puts him on the path toward bettering himself. But when Riley and Nadine Waveney fall in love, he learns that it is virtually impossible to cross the class divide and that her parents would never accept their relationship. In 1914, Riley impulsively joins the army, figuring that if he’s killed, Nadine’s parents won’t have to worry about him anymore, but he also could return as an officer and a gentleman worthy of the woman he loves.
Young follows Nadine as she joins the Voluntary Aid Detachment as part of the war effort, thinking about every injured soldier as if he was Riley and keeping in mind the nurses at the front who may or may not be caring for him. She also puts readers into the trenches with Riley, where he befriends his commanding officer, Peter Locke, whose wife, Julia, is not fit for war work so spends all of her time making sure she and their house are beautiful for when he returns home. Peter’s cousin, Rose, a woman who has resigned herself to being single, works as a nurse, and it is through her that the paths of all of these characters will cross.
I absolutely loved My Dear I Wanted to Tell You from the very beginning. Young’s writing is just about perfect, from her masterful use of description to her ability to portray the inner turmoil of so many unique characters all at once. She skillfully paints a picture of a society being changed by the war, with women becoming more ambitious and independent and more willing to talk about and embrace their sexuality. The female characters are all quite different, with Rose professing no need for marriage and even becoming a smoker, Nadine wanting to break free from the responsibilities forced upon her by her family’s societal standing and to travel and be an artist, and Julia wanting nothing more than to be a good and beautiful wife.
At the same time, she gets into the heads of Riley and Peter and shows how they process the horrible things they witness on the battlefield, whether thinking of themselves as non-existent when in the midst of the chaos or turning to women and drink to forget the painful images. Regardless of how they cope, Young emphasizes an important truth, that they and their relationships with their wives and girlfriends will never be the same again. Nadine understands Riley to a certain extent due to her VAD work, but Julia has a hard time coping with the changes she sees in her husband and his distance from the romantic life they once shared.
I was surprised by how quickly I became invested in these characters and how real they and their experiences felt to me. Although a love story at its core, the war and its impact is so vivid and so well portrayed that the romance really takes a back seat to everything else (which is why I think the hardcover image is a better representation of the story than the paperback cover at the beginning of this post). Young also goes into great detail about the facial reconstruction surgeries pioneered at the hospital in Sidcup, which was fascinating but hard to read.
My Dear I Wanted to Tell You is a novel that really gets to the heart of what it means to go to war and how nothing will ever be the same again for both the soldiers and their loved ones, even if they are lucky enough to come home. Young doesn’t shy away from describing the horrific things that happen in war, including the fear that prompted some soldiers to go to great lengths to escape the fighting, and she also emphasizes the home front, from the misinformation in the newspapers to the impact of the war on a marriage. If you haven’t read too much about WWI or simply want to read a book rich with history, beautiful writing, and surprisingly real characters (and you aren’t afraid of the darkness and intensity that accompany depictions of war), then you must give this one a try.
Thanks to TLC Book Tours for having me on the blog tour for My Dear I Wanted to Tell You. To follow the tour, click here.
Disclosure: I received My Dear I Wanted to Tell You from Harper for review.
© 2012 Anna Horner of Diary of an Eccentric. All Rights Reserved. Please do not reproduce or republish content without permission.
Wow, Anna … I can tell how much you loved this book, so I’m adding it to my list too!
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Yay! Hope you love it!
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I just skimmed your review because I haven’t read this yet, but I am glad to hear it is good! I wish my copy would arrive. I hate how slow the mail is here!
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I can’t wait to hear what you think of it!
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I’m really looking forward to reading this one. I think it sounds great.
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I’m glad you enjoyed it, even if Julia was annoying to you.
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Wonderful, in-depth review Anna! I will add this to my TBR list. It sounds like a very touching story about WW I.
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Thanks, Suko! Hope you get a chance to read it.
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The passage you shared pulled me right in and made me want to read more. Sounds wonderful!
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Glad you enjoyed it. Hope you give the book a try.
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When reading books with this setting it’s easy to understand why soldiers experienced post-traumatic stress after the war. This one sounds like a very compelling and heartbreaking story.
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It was a heartbreaking story but so worth the emotional roller coaster.
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Argh! It sounds just wonderful (well, in a war kind of way). I don’t know a huge amount about WWI but my husband’s grandfather fought in that war, so I would like to learn more. *sigh* I need to just dedicate a year or two to WWI like I did WWII. To have the time…
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I hear you! My list of WWI and WWII to-read books is a mile long!
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It sounds really good. Adding it to my (very long) TBR list. Great review!
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Thanks, Mary!
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You had me at WWI…
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Oh good! I’m the same way with WWII books. 🙂
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I think I might have told you about this one, I borrowed it but never read it but after this is deserves another go
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We’ve talked about so many books, I don’t remember. 🙂 Hope you give it another try!
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I’d never heard of this book before but you’ve got me wanting to read it. Isn’t it funny how one small event can alter your life like that?
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I hope you give it a try. It really is mind boggling.
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The Great War was quite horrible as I have read. An Unmarked Grave by Charles Todd described the war wounded and the suffering. This book seems like a good one to find out more about the war too.
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Some of the stories set in the trenches are just horrific, but war is horrific. I haven’t read the Charles Todd books, but I’ve heard great things about them.
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I’m reviewing this later this week — SO.GOOD!
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Glad to see you loved it as much as I did!
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This book sounds amazing! Between your review and Lisa’s of Lit and Life, I know I have to read this book and not just for the War through thr Generations Challenge. It sounds like the kind of book that allows you to experience war without having been in it and understand how it impacted the lives of so many people.
The passage you included at the start of your review is amazing. I understand why the author’s writing is so compelling.
Thank you for this terrific review, Anna!
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Thanks! I really think you’d love this book, and I hope you give it a try.
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[…] StopsTuesday, June 26th: A Musing ReviewsWednesday, June 27th: Lit and LifeThursday, June 28th: Diary of an EccentricTuesday, July 3rd: Reading LarkWednesday, July 4th: Unabridged ChickThursday, July 5th: Diary of a […]
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Wow, this sounds like a book I would REALLY enjoy. Thanks for the great review Anna – I’m so glad you enjoyed this one. I’m featuring your review on TLC’s Facebook page today.
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Thanks, Heather!
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I had a commenter who thought that Young didn’t really want her characters to be in love and hadn’t done a good job writing them. But I’m with you, as you know, I really felt like we got into these character’s heads. I adored Riley!
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I’d have to disagree with that commenter, too.
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This one sounds phenomenal and I haven’t really read much about WWI so it interests me big time!!
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I think you’d really love this one.
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[…] Patricia Falvey 8. Shadows Walking by Douglas R. Skopp 9. Archie’s War by Marcia Williams 10. My Dear I Wanted to Tell You by Louisa Young 11. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway 12. Overseas by Beatriz […]
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