Thank you Hachette Audio for the ALC and BooksForwardPR & Forever Books, #partner, for the finished copy of Until We Meet in exchange for my honest review.
Publisher: Forever / Hachette Audio
Published: March 1, 2022
Summary:
A poignant and pause-resisting story of three women whose lives are forever changed by war….
New York City, 1943
Can one small act change the course of a life?
Margaret’s job at the Navy Yard brings her freedoms she never dared imagine, but she wants to do something more personal to help the war effort. Knitting socks for soldiers is a way to occupy her quiet nights and provide comfort to the boys abroad. But when a note she tucks inside one of her socks sparks a relationship with a long-distance pen pal, she finds herself drawn to a man she’s never even met.
Can a woman hold on to her independence if she gives away her heart?
Gladys has been waiting her whole life for the kinds of opportunities available to her now that so many men are fighting overseas. She’s not going to waste a single one. And she’s not going to let her two best friends waste them either. Then she meets someone who values her opinions as much as she likes giving them, and suddenly she is questioning everything she once held dear.
Can an unwed mother survive on her own?
Dottie is in a dire situation – she’s pregnant, her fiancé is off fighting the war, and if her parents find out about the baby, they’ll send her away and make her give up her child. Knitting helps take her mind off her uncertain future – until the worst happens and she must lean on her friends like never before.
With their worlds changing in unimaginable ways, Margaret, Gladys, and Dottie will learn that the unbreakable bond of friendship between them is what matters most of all.
My thoughts:
This is the fourth book I’ve read by Camille Di Maio and with each one I pick up by her, I fall more in love with her writing and her characters. She has such a way of making her stories come to life, and such a way of effortlessly combining fact and fiction in her historical fiction tales.
I love WWII two stories and find that I just cannot get enough of them. There are always new stories to be told and new lens from which to see how the war impacted those who lived through this time and this book clearly shows that. What happened when all the men left to go to war? In Brooklyn, NY, it means the women were left to pick up the slack and we follow three young women who do just that.
I loved that this not only follows a group of three young women who spend their days working at the Brooklyn Navy Yard and their nights knitting socks to send to the men in care packages, but it also follows a group of men overseas fighting. We see how hard the daily life is for the men, the training that ensues between the fighting and how devastating the tragedies are when loss of life happens.
I loved the theme of friendship that is carried through this book. These women learn to lean on each other when one finds herself in a spot of trouble. They celebrate their strengths and weaknesses together and find ways to make things better not only for themselves but for others that are struggling. I also loved the letters that were sent back and forth between the Margaret and one of the guys. They provide such a personal experience to the story, allowing us to see the inner feelings of what it must have been like during that time.
This book really captures the heart and soul of what it must feel like to have someone you care for at war. It was hard not to worry about these characters – you really become emotionally involved and I love stories like that. If you love emotionally-driven stories…this is definitely the book for you!
Audio thoughts:
This book really translated well onto audio. It was narrated by Stephanie Willing and Steve Quinn and I thought they did a fantastic job bringing this book to life. I was totally captivated by this one.
