I should not have liked this book at all, as the action is so SLOW. Actually, to say there is any action at all is a misnomer. It's really the interior life of an 80-year-old woman facing her death, looking at her life, her children's and grandchildren's lives.

I believe O'Nan purposely made this a slow sort of uneventful read. Because that atmosphere helps present the life of an older person, dealing with the mundane, no longer in the midst of a lot of action (like raising kids).

The chapter that moved me the most was toward the end, when she visits her home-town, at her parents' graves, and contemplates moving back.

I now go around thinking of myself as Mij, Alone. Mij, Alone, is doing all right. I am 13 years younger than the character of Emily, but many of the things she experienced and thought about resonated with me. The chapter when Emily waits for her kids to call on Mother's Day--so right on.

Although I am now looking forward to reading a book with more action (Caleb's Crossing), I am very grateful Stewart O'Nan wrote this book. Emily has helped prepare me for what all of us have to go through--getting older and dying.

Stunning, captivating, fascinating.

Readers who enjoy historical fiction will likely love this book.

Readers who identify with stories of loss will be grateful for this book.

I want to write more about why I loved this book, but I am just speechless.

In Next to Love, I escaped back to WWII and saw life through the eyes of three women and their husbands, all affected by the war. As I followed their stories, I often found myself thinking of my mother and my aunts, picturing their lives as young women, starting out in life, and then with families, through the years, seeing what was expected of them as wives and mothers.

The brutality and tragedy of the war was vividly brought out, and how each of the three women responded to events affecting their husbands and their own lives. I liked how some of these effects were spread out over a span of years, which is the way life is sometimes. Sometimes in life, an event will happen that jars. It can take years for a resolution, for healing.

History buffs will find this book very satisfying.

Some criticisms:

Throughout the book, it felt like there was a narrator standing in the background, telling the story. This worked for me sometimes, but at other times, no. Sometimes I wondered whose voice it was--the narrator’s, or the character that was being portrayed in a particular chapter.

The other thing about the narrator’s words--it felt like “telling” instead of showing. I was being instructed about some idea about WWII or other things. When I read a novel, I do not like to be “told” something. I prefer to “see” it in a picture of words painted by the author. I realize this is not always possible, that some telling has to be there. But here, I thought it was too often, too much.

Finally, what I really wanted more of, but which would have required a novel of many more pages, was more knowledge of the three women’s characters, more of their personal stories, or whatever ways authors use to “develop” their characters. Although each of the stories in the novel were interesting to read, I never felt like I really knew them intimately, never truly got inside their shoes.

I so loved this book. Absorbing, gripping, fascinating. Could not put it down. Seen through the eyes of a half-Jewish woman before, during and after WWII.

This book was SO GOOD. The setting, the history, the poignant tale of the father and his daughter. The story stays will stay with me forever.