Joyce

This book could be condensed to a bumper sticker ... life's a bitch and then you die. While it is well-written and the newspaper background is somewhat interesting, the characters tend to be pathetic and the book moves plotlessly along at a snail's pace.

I am a FLW fan so I didn't expect to be so surprised and engaged by this book. The underlying questions of love, responsibility, family and freedom stimulated a lot of thought and conversation with friends. Mamah was a remarkable woman forced to make a decision that I'm thankful I never had to contemplate in my own life.

I am a FLW fan so I didn't expect to be so surprised and engaged by this book. The underlying questions of love, responsibility, family and freedom stimulated a lot of thought and conversation with friends. Mamah was a remarkable woman forced to make a decision that I'm thankful I never had to contemplate in my own life.

With an 8-hour drive in front of me, I was looking forward to listening to this book. After an hour, I turned it off. Maybe it got better ... I'll never know. It was so full of cliches and a story that didn't hold together, that silence was a better option. The narration was fine, it was everything else that was slow torture.

This is a hard book to listen to and Burke walks the knife's edge through the horrors of war both abroad and at home. He puts you into places of terror without ever glorifying the violence. His books always make me feel like I've been some place real and met people I would otherwise never meet. Will Patton's reading brings the story alive.