Missy: A Novel Review

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(More customer reviews)I enjoyed the book a lot. I guess it was a historical novel, but it was also a study of the world of drug addiction. Here are some of my miscellaneous thoughts about the book:
1. Many books are great along the way and it's not the destination that is so good, but the journey getting there. I would say that the destination in this book, where our main 19 year old opium addicted call girl realizes finally, that her whole existence and actions were seriously tainted by her addiction, was the thing that makes the book work so well. I knew that her actions were tainted by drugs along the way, but the final chapters somehow made the whole book more relevant and topical and good to me as this revelation comes to her.
2. The historical parts were excellent. The descriptions of the reactions to different murders, how the "law" operated, the tolerance for bad behavior, good men seeing call girls, good women being "flashers", and just how ribald the times really were in these mining towns, were insightful and seemed correct. Almost laughable and somehow endearing compared to today.
3. I loved the relationship Dol has with each of the other flashgirls. There is a "Sex in the City" element here that was very enjoyable and sometimes touching.
4. Dol, our narrator, is a hilarious and very intelligent girl with her insights into human behavior and comments about living the sober life away from the all night drug enhanced parties she is part of. Made me wonder if I've been too sober myself.
5. The grittiness of travel with handcarts, covered wagons through mud and muck, up huge mountain ranges in the desert was well done. In a way, it didn't fit in with the light natured life they lived otherwise, but it added to the believability of the book.
6. Dol's relationship with her mother was very interesting and insightful. We want things to be different for both of them, but it was a huge struggle for Dol and obviously for the mother. There was no sugar coating to be found in the book.
I gave the book 3 stars instead of 4 because I felt the plot sometimes moved along too slowly with some of the main themes being repeated over and over again. And yet, as I re-read my own review, I think if you read the book, you will find a lot of great and rewarding stuff.

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The American Expeditionary Forces in World War I (Battle Orders) Review

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(More customer reviews)John F. Votaw, a retired US Army officer, has written an excellent organizational study of the American Expeditionary Force (AEF) in France in the First World War in Osprey's Battle Orders #6. This volume provides a wealth of detail information about the formation and composition of AEF units that make it a valuable adjunct to any of the recent, more in-depth studies of the US role in the First World War.
The volume begins with a focused "mission" analysis that discusses the role intended for the AEF, followed by interesting sections on the training of the AEF and its C3I. The author provides ten maps: the Western Front in 1917; AEF Divisional Training Areas; strategic features on the Lorraine Front; AEF services of supply; the Battle of Cantigny; initial plan of attack in the Aisne-Marne offensive; operations of the 1st and 2nd Divisions in the Aisne-Marne; attack on St. Mihiel; the Argonne offensive; and US positions at the armistice. However, the heart of the work are the numerous line and block charts that detail the composition of the AEF's units from army and corps level down to brigade and battalion level. The main focus is on AEF infantry and artillery units, although information is also provided on the tank corps, engineers, services of supply and air service. The author also provides detailed orders of battle for the 1st, 26th and 77th Infantry Divisions, as well as interesting sidebars on various US commanders. It is also apparent from the author's narrative, that significant friction existed in the AEF between the Regular Army and National Guard officers - an issue which never seems to go away.
In the section on tactics, the author examines a regimental attack at Cantigny (28 May 1918) and a divisional attack at Soissons (18 July 1918), as well as brief discussion of tank and aerial tactics. The section on weapons and equipment hits the highlights, but readers may prefer to refer to Osprey's Men-at-Arms titles on the AEF for more information on this particular aspect. Perhaps the only significant omission in this otherwise fine volume is the lack of any mention of the US Chemical Corps and the impact of chemical warfare; there is a Leavenworth Study available on the subject that would have been useful for this volume to draw upon and there is little doubt that the AEF put a major effort into dealing with the chemical threat. Overall, this volume on the AEF's composition is a useful addition to any First World War library.


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Upon the entry of the United States into World War I, the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) were created by the War Department on short notice from existing units, filled up with men from the training camps and deployed with only their personal weapons and equipment. The US Army was not prepared for combat in France, and the remarkable achievement of the AEF's commanding officer, John J Pershing, was the creation of an American field army, built and nurtured from the bottom up. This book details the organizational structure, training and doctrine of the AEF and illustrates how it came to make a significant contribution to Allied victory in World War I.

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The Jewel Trader of Pegu: A Novel (P.S.) Review

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(More customer reviews)I was delighted when I received an Advanced Readers Copy of "The Jewel Trader of Pegu" by Jefferey Hantover to review. Everything about the description of this book enchanted me. It looked like it would be a tantalizing and sensuous mix of literary delights: an adventure story set in the 16th century Burmese Kingdom of Pegu, a tender romance with ancient multiracial and multireligious overtones, a thinking-reader's tale rife with thematic undercurrents, and a work of dreamy and lyrical prose.
I finished the novel easily in one day. The experience was pleasant enough, but the book left me feeling sorely disappointed. It wasn't the ending that disappointed. Rather, it was the insubstantial literary weight of the entire work. I wanted to like this work. There was great promise, on multiple levels, but none of the parts measured up. The novel left me feeling empty.
Typically, I write a review within a day or two after finishing a book. But I didn't for this book. Instead, I kept waiting. I let almost a week go by hoping time might provide further insight that I could use to appreciate this book in a better light. But the more time passed, the more I found myself finding even greater fault with this work.
On the good side, the author succeeded in giving me an intriguing glimpse of two separate late-16th-century worlds: the Jewish Ghetto of Venice, and the Southeast-Asian Kingdom of Pegu. But even here, I felt cheated. I wanted much more detail. Historical fiction typically takes its readers deep into the culture, politics, economy, technology, and customs of a new world. This book merely gave an overall feeling for the times. That might have been all right, if the novel had delivered convincing deeply wrought main characters. But here, too, I felt let down. For me, none of the characters came to life. They weren't flat. They were just not real three-dimensional human beings. Frankly, the main characters, Abraham and Mya, were nothing more than flimsy fantasy--too perfect to be real.
The inspiration for the story evidently came from a single sentence in an unnamed Southeast Asian history book: "In Pegu and other ports of Burma and Siam, foreign traders were asked to initiate brides." From this one source, the author builds the entire scaffolding for his novel. But I found his framework to be little more than a house of cards. I was completely unable to buy into the author's fantasy of what this sentence might suggest. The more I thought about it, the more upset it made me. How dare the author create a fictional history on so little evidence? To me this idea seemed little more than a late-night sailor's tale that somehow made its way into some obscure history tome. But perhaps more important, is how poorly the author succeeds in making us believe these rituals: the deflowering of ancient merchant-class Burmese brides by foreign traders in order to bring their families good luck. Nonsense!
The novel did have one significant redeeming quality: the prose was fresh, reflective, and at times delightfully lyrical.
In the end, this novel was nothing more than a light sensual soft-core romance-- uncommon in its unusual ancient multicultural setting, but nonetheless very forgettable.

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