Flying the white flag
THE WAR WIDOWS by Leah Fleming, AVON, pp324, ISBN: 9781847560131
Chick-lit continues to be one of the fastest growing fiction genres today and publishers push this genre because of its viability as a sales tactic. Clearly, the success of Bridget Jones and Sex and the City in book form established chick-lit as an important trend in publishing.
Even now, many believe the genre has a viable future because its story lines and characters mirror society. It is a genre written by women for women who are dealing with the same issues that are in the books and are trying to make sense of their lives.
Following a group of women who help each other to find happiness after the grief and distress of World War II, Leah Fleming's The War Widows is the sort of chick-lit that will appeal to fans of the genre.
The setting is the sleepy town of Grimbleton in Lancashire in a dire post-war Britain. The story begins with the arrival of Greek Ana and Burmese Susan who, both asserting to be the fiancée of dead soldier Freddie Winstanley, are taken in by his family.
Enemies at first, Susan and Ana soon find themselves united in sorrow at the loss of Freddie Winstanley who is the father of both their children.
In The War Widows, people from different walks of life are thrown together in a gritty situation. The main characters include the trim and courteous Burmese Susan, the high-spirited, passionate Greek (Ana) and Italian (Maria) girls and the emotionally-repressed English women (Lily and Diana).
The dead Freddie also becomes a character in his own right. The friendship between these girls inspires the bulk of the book and the story reflects how relationships shape our inner and outer lives. As the story progresses, the main protagonist, Freddie's sister Lily, is forced to examine every aspect of her life.
This is because the complex lives of Lily's new friends prompt her to consider her own future and the choices she has made, and she eventually finds the courage to change her own life for the better.
To a certain extent, the story highlights the significance of hope - a perspective that accounts in large part for the emotional power of the text where each woman's courage is sorely tested in this tale of relationships and self-discovery.
Ms Fleming also emphasises the need for a friend after losing everything you love. On a deeper level, The War Widows is a novel which deals with issues of belonging, identity, family secrets and true love. It is a novel about rivalries and strange alliances, but most of all about the transforming power of friendships.
It provides an insight into how a group of essentially different women in the aftermath of bleak wartime austerity try to recreate Mediterranean sunshine and food as well as make new lives for themselves.
The War Widows is not linguistically challenging and the plot flows fairly easily yet could have been a lot shorter. Nevertheless, Ms Fleming fails to fully develop the characters and risks their portrayal being unrealistic.
Not all of the characters are drawn with enough sufficient detail and depth to help the reader understand their actions and feelings. Moreover, Ms Fleming also fails to balance memorable characterisations with a convincing narrative and tends to stretch the characters' credibility, thus making it difficult for the reader to connect with their personae. Another major flaw is that the dialogue is not always plausible.
The War Widows is a tale of love and tragedy that makes for easy reading. Like other chick-lit heroines, Lily moves through a rite of passage in her life's journey, from innocence to experience, illusion to disillusion, blindness to sight.
True to the chick-lit genre, The War Widows is a character study in which Ms Fleming creates a group of fictitious female characters and puts them through a series of mostly realistic ordeals - many that many women can relate to.
Love it or hate it, chick-lit continues to find an audience.
■ Ms Montanaro is a post-graduate student at the University of Edinburgh. She is researching for a PhD on Psychoanalysis and British Surrealism.
A review copy of this title was supplied by www.ilovebooks.com.mt.
Even now, many believe the genre has a viable future because its story lines and characters mirror society. It is a genre written by women for women who are dealing with the same issues that are in the books and are trying to make sense of their lives.
Following a group of women who help each other to find happiness after the grief and distress of World War II, Leah Fleming's The War Widows is the sort of chick-lit that will appeal to fans of the genre.
The setting is the sleepy town of Grimbleton in Lancashire in a dire post-war Britain. The story begins with the arrival of Greek Ana and Burmese Susan who, both asserting to be the fiancée of dead soldier Freddie Winstanley, are taken in by his family.
Enemies at first, Susan and Ana soon find themselves united in sorrow at the loss of Freddie Winstanley who is the father of both their children.
In The War Widows, people from different walks of life are thrown together in a gritty situation. The main characters include the trim and courteous Burmese Susan, the high-spirited, passionate Greek (Ana) and Italian (Maria) girls and the emotionally-repressed English women (Lily and Diana).
The dead Freddie also becomes a character in his own right. The friendship between these girls inspires the bulk of the book and the story reflects how relationships shape our inner and outer lives. As the story progresses, the main protagonist, Freddie's sister Lily, is forced to examine every aspect of her life.
This is because the complex lives of Lily's new friends prompt her to consider her own future and the choices she has made, and she eventually finds the courage to change her own life for the better.
To a certain extent, the story highlights the significance of hope - a perspective that accounts in large part for the emotional power of the text where each woman's courage is sorely tested in this tale of relationships and self-discovery.
Ms Fleming also emphasises the need for a friend after losing everything you love. On a deeper level, The War Widows is a novel which deals with issues of belonging, identity, family secrets and true love. It is a novel about rivalries and strange alliances, but most of all about the transforming power of friendships.
It provides an insight into how a group of essentially different women in the aftermath of bleak wartime austerity try to recreate Mediterranean sunshine and food as well as make new lives for themselves.
The War Widows is not linguistically challenging and the plot flows fairly easily yet could have been a lot shorter. Nevertheless, Ms Fleming fails to fully develop the characters and risks their portrayal being unrealistic.
Not all of the characters are drawn with enough sufficient detail and depth to help the reader understand their actions and feelings. Moreover, Ms Fleming also fails to balance memorable characterisations with a convincing narrative and tends to stretch the characters' credibility, thus making it difficult for the reader to connect with their personae. Another major flaw is that the dialogue is not always plausible.
The War Widows is a tale of love and tragedy that makes for easy reading. Like other chick-lit heroines, Lily moves through a rite of passage in her life's journey, from innocence to experience, illusion to disillusion, blindness to sight.
True to the chick-lit genre, The War Widows is a character study in which Ms Fleming creates a group of fictitious female characters and puts them through a series of mostly realistic ordeals - many that many women can relate to.
Love it or hate it, chick-lit continues to find an audience.
■ Ms Montanaro is a post-graduate student at the University of Edinburgh. She is researching for a PhD on Psychoanalysis and British Surrealism.
A review copy of this title was supplied by www.ilovebooks.com.mt.