What readers think of Next to Love, plus links to write your own review.

The home front during World War II and into the 1950’s has always interested me, but with this novel I think Ellen Feldman takes on too much and doesn’t fulfill her ambitions. She wants the reader to become involved in the lives of the three central women characters, but I never was convinced that they were close friends on a deep level. She wants to show the horrors of war--the heartbreak of loss and the unseen scars of those who returned; the injustice of racism and prejudice; the joys and heartbreaks of marriage, and sex, in many of its varieties. She shows us all these, yet she leaves off just as I felt she was going to explore them more fully or bring some resolution for the characters. This, of course, would have resulted in a longer novel, or required a more focused approach.

I give kudos to Ellen Feldman for her superior writing skills and fully developed realistic characters; where my discord arises is the overpopulation of stereotypes throughout the book. Next To Love deals with love and war and also with American society before and after WWII, that is riddled with class and race struggles. The book did however offer a new perspective on race issues. Feldman was artfully wove these themes into the story, creating an enriching story.

Yet and still, the war stories - home and abroad - and complex themes of love were a bit heavy for the soul, too heavy for me. I do however appreciate the lesson in history; 1950s postwar America and the dawning of the civil rights movement, the birth of the Baby Booming Generation, and the evolution of Feminism via the displacement of women from the workforce and their desire for something more than a life of domestic servitude. Although deep and somewhat depressing, Next To Love is still a good read.

The best part of this book revolving around wives of soldiers going overseas during WWII was in-depth understanding of the women. The issues of army wives following husbands from camp to camp was unknown to me, especially the strong feelings people had about it. However, I felt as though I had pages missing from the end of the book. There seemed to be no resolution or decisions made or at least statements about accepting one's life. The characters started out interesting and ended up one dimensional. A good read but the end was flat.

Really got hooked in the beginning; held my attention through the middle, but a tiny let down at the end. Would recommend for the character intricacies and especially for the female leads.

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.

Next to Love is an ambitious novel that suffered from trying to fit too much story into too short of a book. Three very different women face challenges that should have created a real emotional impact given the subject matter. However, I never felt connected to any of the characters. Trying to tell their stories over so many years left less room for the development of their characters. The pacing and cohesion of the book always felt off. There were some moments of great writing and times when I did want to see what would happen next. I do think there was a lot of potential. Overall it was a book that I do not regret reading, but not one that I will remember for long.

I wanted to like Next to Love. The premise--following a group of friends from WWII until the 60's-- seemed to offer a different twist to the usual "women & friendships" novel. Instead I found myself struggling to finish, in spite of some beautifully written phrases and intriguing plot lines. The characters were one dimensional and felt stereotypical---the girl from the wrong side of the tracks; the good girl. What could have been a fascinating glimpse of history through the eyes of women who lived through it left me cold by the end.

I found this book very ordinary. At times she wrote beautiful sentences, other times I could hardly follow. There was not one character that I really liked. I felt like there were to many unresolved situations.