Helpful Score: 12
This drove me crazy. I cannot understand why authors need to use gimmicks in their writing. All dialogue blended in with narrative as the author didn't use quotation marks. I had to keep going back, or pausing to re-read. I read to maybe the 3rd chapter, and it was actually getting interesting, but the headache it gave me wasn't worth the struggle.
Helpful Score: 9
gritty. i personally didn't like the writitng style, but the writing itself was superb.
Helpful Score: 7
Even though I'm not a big history lover, I really enjoyed reading this book about women during the Civil War. Actual accounts of the war are at the begining of each chapter, and then Adair Colley's story continues. I had a difficult time putting this book down and hated to see it end.
Helpful Score: 6
It was a little romance-y, but I still really enjoyed learning more about Missouri during the Civil War.
Helpful Score: 5
Absolutely wonderful read. Ever so worth each moment spent with these pages. Story well written and very engageing.It is suspense and thrilling and sad and love. It will show you what you could do if you put your mind to something. This story is about survival and living during a dangerous time and making it. But never knowing if making it would ever happen till it finally did. This is a beautiful story.
Helpful Score: 3
If you like Cold Mountain, you will like this book!
Helpful Score: 3
I love this book and have shared it with several friends, all of whom found it equally good. Beautifully written, it presents a different view of the Civil War: that of a Southern woman who is captured, jailed, and finally makes her way home.
"Jiles carries her gifts with deft precision." The New York Times Book Review
"What a gifted writer Jiles is: she writes as naturally as breathing, yet with passages that soar into the most eloquent and beautiful poetry." Sharon Butala
"'Enemy Women', as all of Paulette Jiles's work, has a Homeresque feel to it. Like something written by an old soul. The wandering. Not just over earthly miles but through zones of sensuousness, epiphany, intuition, creatureliness, homely integrity, all that old, old, old true human stuff that goes in and out ot fashion and favor and takes a writer who is no-nonsense and hard-nosed to keep a hand on it. This is an ageless story that casts a different shadow than ordinary writers' earnest prostrated little tries at distinction. These are ageless truths. All is fair in love and war, as they say." Carolyn Chute
"Jiles carries her gifts with deft precision." The New York Times Book Review
"What a gifted writer Jiles is: she writes as naturally as breathing, yet with passages that soar into the most eloquent and beautiful poetry." Sharon Butala
"'Enemy Women', as all of Paulette Jiles's work, has a Homeresque feel to it. Like something written by an old soul. The wandering. Not just over earthly miles but through zones of sensuousness, epiphany, intuition, creatureliness, homely integrity, all that old, old, old true human stuff that goes in and out ot fashion and favor and takes a writer who is no-nonsense and hard-nosed to keep a hand on it. This is an ageless story that casts a different shadow than ordinary writers' earnest prostrated little tries at distinction. These are ageless truths. All is fair in love and war, as they say." Carolyn Chute
Helpful Score: 2
If you are familiar with locales in St Louis and southeast Mo then you will recognize many of the Locations,ie. Irish Wilderness or Doniphan and Van Buren.
For me, a whole new look at the problems of the "little citizens" during the Civil War. Recommend!!
For me, a whole new look at the problems of the "little citizens" during the Civil War. Recommend!!
Helpful Score: 2
Really like the history of the story, but it read a bit too much like a romance novel. And I like romance novels...
Helpful Score: 1
If you love historical novels and romance you will love this. It takes place during the Civil War.
Enjoyable read. A nice blend of fact and fiction.
This was such an awesome book. I couldn't put it down.
A fictional story set in the Civil War.
We read this book for our book club and the author lives nearby and was able to attend and talk to us. The research done for the novel was wonderful and gave so much accuracy to the story that I came away not only entertained but educated. It is a wonderful story that left me feeling connected to the characters and very satisfied as a reader. Definitely a must-read.
This novel takes the reader through the Civil War from a unique perspective-that of a woman who is behind "enemy lines".
Highly readable story of what it might have been like for civilians living in the South during the Civil War. Although a little strangely written, the story flows along smoothly, propelling you along to an ending that seems a little abrupt and anti-climatic. You turn the last page and wonder what happened next! I guess whatever you hoped for -- write your own ending.
Very interesting historical fiction about Civil War in Missouri, from the viewpoint of a young girl who suffers from all sides during the war and is imprisoned for no reason.
For the colleys of southestern Missouri the war between the states is a plague that threatens devastration despite the family's avowed neutrality. For eighteen year old Adair Colley it is a nightmare seen at its most terrible on the day the union militia arrives to set her house on fire, driving her brother into hiding and dragging her widowed father away, beaten and bloodied. Left to care for two young sisters, Adair sees no road but the one that leads away, and they start out on foot into the winter mountains in search of a safe haven
Allowed to "escape" Adair must make her way home to a family that may or may not bet there.
For the Colleys of southeastern Missouri, the War between the States is a plague that threatens devastation, despite the family's avowed neutrality. For eighteen-year-old Adair Colley, it is a nightmare that tears apart her family and forces her and her sisters to flee.
The treachery of a fellow traveler, however, brings about her arrest, and she is caged with the criminal and deranged in a filthy women's prison. But young Adair finds that love can live even in a place of horror and despair. Her interrogator, a Union major, falls in love with her and vows to return for her when the fighting is over. Before he leaves for battle, he bestows upon her a precious gift: freedom.
Now an escaped "enemy woman," Adair must make her harrowing way south buoyed by a promise... seeking a home and a family that may be nothing more than a memory.
The treachery of a fellow traveler, however, brings about her arrest, and she is caged with the criminal and deranged in a filthy women's prison. But young Adair finds that love can live even in a place of horror and despair. Her interrogator, a Union major, falls in love with her and vows to return for her when the fighting is over. Before he leaves for battle, he bestows upon her a precious gift: freedom.
Now an escaped "enemy woman," Adair must make her harrowing way south buoyed by a promise... seeking a home and a family that may be nothing more than a memory.
This copy is in like-new condition.
I did not read this book.
