GI Brides (Book Review)

Title: GI Brides
Author: Duncan Barrett and Nuala Calvi

Barrett and Calvi are also the authors of The Sugar Girls, which chronicled the story of young women working in the factories of East London.

Publication:  HarperCollins Trade Paperback, September 2014

Genre: Nonfiction

Description: The subtitle of this book says it all: The wartime girls who crossed the Atlantic for love.  Between the years 1942 and 1952, about one million American soldiers married foreign women from 50 different countries.  Somewhere between 70,000- 100,000 war brides were British, 150,000 to 200,000 came from continental Europe, and another 16,000 were from Australia and New Zealand.  In this book, Calvi, the granddaughter of one such British war bride, and co-author Barrett take a look at four British women who followed their US husbands back to America after WWII and how they coped with the challenges of their new lives.

  
What I liked: Most of my friends know of my interest in women and war, particularly the work that women did outside the home during WWI and WWII.  I couldn’t put this book down!  While I am a fan of the stories about falling in love with a tall dark stranger, the stories in this book reveal the brash appeal of some of the GIs but the less obvious charm demonstrated by others.  It shows how many GIs were welcomed into British homes because they were far from home, even though many parents worried about their daughters falling for Americans.  The difficulties many of these women experienced when they arrived in the US after the war (or the challenges they had getting to America) are not ignored; instead, the book captures the excitement and the angst of their new lives.   

Audience: Fans of Homefront, one of my favorite TV shows ever, and of Call the Midwife; fans of historical fiction set during WWII. It reminded me of books by Lucilla Andrews, Lilian Harry and Margaret Mayhew. For those who like this genre, I also recommend Ship of Brides by Jojo Moyes.

Source:  I received GI Brides from the TLC Book Tours and urge you to stop by the tour to read other reviews.  

Tuesday, September 9th: BookNAround

Thursday, September 11th: Book Loving Hippo

Wednesday, September 17th: Doing Dewey

Thursday, September 18th: A Novel Review

Monday, September 22nd: Alison’s Book Marks

Wednesday, September 24th: Savvy Verse & Wit

Thursday, September 25th: A Bookworm’s World

Saturday, September 27th: Great Minds Read Alike

Thursday, October 2nd: Book by Book

Wednesday, October 8th: Diary of an Eccentric

Wednesday, October 15th: Sammy the Bookworm

You can buy the book online or at your favorite bookstore.  Highly recommended.