I didn't really care for this book. I didn't like the characters or what they did. I didn't like some of their relationships with each other. I didn't like how Sam's sister talked so graphically about her sex life with her brother. I guess I could not imagine doing such a thing.I recently read Maisie Dobbs and saw the movie War Horse. Both had WWI trench warfare scenes and I liked both of those, so much more! I WANTED to love this book. I EXPECTED to love this book. But, unfortunately, I didn't LOVE this book. I'm not sure that I even liked it that much.The book began with a great premise-- the Christmas truce of WWI, one of the truly great moments (maybe the only great moment) in that useless war. The main character, Hal, meets his German counterpart, Wilhelm, and promises to take a message to Wilhelm's English girlfriend, Sam. However, instead of delivering the message as promised, Hal falls in love with Sam and never lets her know of his meeting with Wilhelm, thus beginning the deception upon which the rest of the book is based.At the end of the day, I didn't like Sam very much. When there are two main characters (or three, if you count the memory of Wilhelm) and you dislike one of them, that makes it difficult to like that book very much. When Hal met her, Sam was a "fallen woman" with a baby with a German father, semi-estranged from her family over said German boyfriend, about to lose her teaching position because of having a child out of wedlock-- Hal swoops in and saves her and her son from poverty with a sham marriage. While she is happy to take the things that Hal offers, Wilhelm's ghost hovers over their lives, in Hal's mind because of the deception and Sam's life because an imaginary lover is always better than an imperfect, real life one.The ending of the book was particularly weak. It was another case of the author running out of steam and trying to end the story as quickly as possible. Hal taking the so-called high road, rather than fighting for his lover and son (because he was Will's father, in every way except biological) was disappointing; Sam was sneaky; and Wilhelm (possibly the only totally honorable character in the book) would not have been the golden boy that Sam fell in love with, even if she does find him again after Hal runs away. In reality, he was probably hopelessly damaged, having spent the whole war in the trenches. They don't call it "the lost generation" for nothing. Nevertheless, Sam chooses the memory of a beautiful boy over the real life that she had with Hal, and the stability that it gave her son, and that is unforgivable.I found it implausible, actually, that Wilhelm actually would have survived, having spent so long in the trenches. It served the author's purpose to have him survive, but, it would have made for a better story if he did not. Then Sam would truly have had to decide if she could live with Hal's deception, but have a real husband, imperfect as he is, or live with the ghost of Wilhelm.Other things bothered me as well, especially relating to some of the minor characters. For example, Sam described her mother as someone who would spit on people to show her displeasure. Sam said that she would have been disowned, and would "have been spit on" had her mother been alive when she (Sam) became pregnant. Yet this same spitting mother married a wealthy aristocrat and was a passenger on the Titanic with the new husband. In class conscience Edwardian England, I find it very implausible that a wealthy man would be so taken with a spitting seamstress, no matter how pretty, that he would actually marry her.In the same vein, Wilhelm was an aristocrat and Sam obviously was not. Had the war not broken out, I don't believe that Wilhelm would have ever married Sam. He would have returned to Germany, and eventually married a suitable German girl, leaving Sam behind.
What do You think about Un Amour Dérobé (2009)?
Thoughtful, haunting, and beautifully crafted, right down to the final twist.
—Bethies11
Interesting but really dragged out in certain parts.
—nlugo
