Once you start it, you won't be able to switch it off!
Advantages:
A poignant, thought provoking story of becoming an adult in WW1 .
Disadvantages:
A bit graphic in places . . . make sure you have a tissue handy !
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
I have jumped back to The First World War for my latest book review. Remembrance by Theresa Breslin was recommended to me by a number of friends ~ they said I would enjoy it and that it needed to be reviewed to encourage others to read and (hopefully) enjoy it too. I borrowed a copy from work and settled down to read….a few hours later and I had gone through a whole gammit of emotions and completed a wonderful book.
~~~THE AUTHOR.
Theresa Breslin is a librarian who lives in Lenzie in Scotland. She has been writing for a number of years and finds much of her inspiration in the castles and ruins around her home. She has received many awards for her work, including the Young Book Trust Fidler Award for Young Writers (for her first novel Simon’s Challenge) and the Carnegie Medal in 1995 (for Whispers in the Graveyard). She writes mainly for older children and teenagers, but her books are enjoyed by a great deal of adults too ~ including me!
~~~THE STORY.
As I said before, Remembrance is set in World War One. The initial setting is the small Scottish village of Stratharden in 1915 and the story revolves around a group of five teenagers from two families. They come from different social backgrounds, but the insular nature of the community has meant that they have grown up together and their lives are linked.
The War has been going on around them for a while, but they it hasn’t really had much of an impact on them ~ they have heard stories and read newspapers, but so far they are too young to understand how it will begin to dominate their lives. One by one the group begin to embark on adventures that take them over the Channel to where the War is a reality.
What follows is what can loosely be termed a “rights of passage” type book, where the central characters are transported from the secure world of youth and take their first steps into adulthood. The only problem is that they are taking the ordinary process of growing up in an extraordinary environment! Charlotte, Alex, John Malcolm, Maggie and Francis find out about life in different places and in different roles, but all of them learn the horrors of War and that life will never be the same as it was in the summer of 1915.
~~~WHAT I THOUGHT.
When I first started reading I wasn’t sure if Remembrance was going to be “my sort” of book! There is no Time Travel and no fantasy! Theresa Breslin writes so descriptively and with such insight, so it wasn’t long before I was engrossed in the story. The way the characters develop and grow is excellent and I really found myself caring about what happened to them.
My favourite character is Charlotte; she is fifteen when the book begins and is in conflict with her extremely traditional mother over what she will do with her future. Her mother wants her to marry well and Charlotte wants to DO something.
“I’m not trying to look respectable, I’m trying to be useful!”
At the start of the story she has begun working at a small hospital, but she eventually feels she must go over to France to nurse wounded soldiers. At first I think she does this without really knowing what it entails ~ she has no experience of nursing badly injured people. But Charlotte learns, she copes and she survives! She shows more strength of character than even she believed she had ~ once she decides that she MUST stay she feels pride and feels that she CAN help. The book is so well written that when Charlotte feels “a glow of triumph within her”, so do I!
Remembrance is not a novel that glorifies war! Certain passages are quite gruesome; but they only show how brutal futile and dehumanising war can be.
“Do you think these are the worst?” she [Charlotte] whispered to Orderly Martin as they struggled to cut soiled bandages from one man. The solider opened his eyes. “No darlin’” he said in a broad Yorkshire accent. “The worst lie where they fall. Some have been lying where they fell in 1914.”
That said, the book also shows the positive effect the awful situation has on people. Charlotte is able to lead a much more fulfilling life than she may have done and Maggie finds that the War has made more opportunities for women. The main characters also have to cope with falling in love for the first time and interacting with a wider variety of individuals than they have ever come across before.
The male characters also deal with the War in different ways. Alex and John Malcolm are waiting for the moment they can enlist and get to the Front to be with their friends. They start off feeling that war is glorious and are anxious that it isn’t all over before they get out there! They soon learn that the reality is much, much worse as they and their comrades begin to fall! It is only Francis that saw how bad things were going to be and was worried that people had grown accustomed to death far too easily.
I loved the book and was disturbed and comforted by it all at the same time. I found it to be emotional in a number of different ways ~ the fighting and descriptions of amputations were frightening real, yet the development from adolescence to adulthood made me smile and feel hope. There was love among the harsh backdrop; maybe something good could come out of the horror! Friendships are formed as a result of grief and comradeship …and the ending is very poignant indeed!
Remembrance is marketed as a book for teenagers and young adults. It is a bit graphic in places for anyone younger, but it is certainly suitable for anyone who likes a good involved read. Its subject matter may not seem overly interesting to teenagers, but I think that if they give it a go, they will find a story that contains elements that are still relevant and readable. It has adventure, romance and the attention to detail in the descriptions carries it through.
I would recommend that you read Remembrance. It will make you think, laugh, cry and I defy anyone not to empathise with Breslin’s characters!
Book details:
Product Details: • Hardcover 304 pages (1 January, 2002) • Publisher: Doubleday; ISBN: 0385602049 Cover Price: £10.99 currently for sale on Amazon at £8.79
***If anyone wants to know where the title comes from...read the excellent work of Siegfried Sassoon****
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Excellent
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Excellent
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