16 Comments

I also learned little about Vietnam, but Viet Thanh Nguyen's The Sympathizer sparked my interest, I'd love to read more. I'll add this to my TBR.

This week I'm reading The Story of Lost Child by Elena Ferrante. Her voice and scenes are so good!

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Ferrante is my all-time favorite author. You can’t go wrong with her! The Sympathizer sounds fascinating, thanks for bringing it to my attention!

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Thanks for the mention! This book was an absolute masterpiece. My favorite of hers for a long time was the nightingale - my first introduction. But the women? The writing is just amazing, pacing incredible, and you can tell the effort put into this one.

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Yes, same for me! The Nightingale is incredible (and incredibly sad) but this one is more somehow. I can’t even fathom how much work went into it.

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I started to read The Women but couldn't continue. It hit too close to home. My husband was that corpsman bringing the wounded to triage from the helicopter. My husband was in those most dangerous areas during Frankie's deployment.My husband saw things and did things no-one should ever have to see or do. My husband was the angry, self medicating alcoholic I lived with and cared for for fifty years. My husband was a hero and so was I.

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Ooof. I can understand why you put the book down. Nobody can expect you to sit through ~15 hours of those memories. Thank you for sharing, Peggy ❤️‍🩹

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“I put these together because they were similar (and similarly boring for anyone uninterested in novel structure).” 😂😂😂😂😂

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Hahah they’d be so boring if you didn’t care

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I loved The Women and The Nightingale! I don't often read historical fiction but both books stuck with me.

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They’re both wonderful. A high bar for other historical fiction titles!!

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Thanks for this recommendation. It's now top of my next-read list. Just finishing "Site Fidelity" -- it's wonderful.

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I haven’t read that one! Thanks for putting it on my radar 🤓. If you read The Women, please let me know how it goes for you!

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I read this book a couple months back and I still think about it🥲 It is truly phenomenal!

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Isn’t it?? What a masterpiece.

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I wanted to get to the Christmas Cookie Wars, but alas, I don't think it's going to happen this year. Maybe next year. Thanks for sharing The Women.

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I loved The Women too. I just wish there was another character so not all trauma and tragedies happened to Frankie. Definitely glad to have a book about women in Vietnam.

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