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Next to Love

3.56 of 5 stars 3.56 · rating details · 1,774 ratings · 451 reviews

For fans of "The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society, The Postmistress," and "Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, " a story of love, war, loss, and the scars they leave set during the years of World War II and its aftermath.
It's 1941. Babe throws like a boy, thinks for herself, and never expects to escape the poor section of her quiet Massachusetts town. Then W...more

Paperback, 292 pages

Published 2011 by Picador

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Jul 09, 2011 Misfit rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: amazon-vine, skimmed-a-lot

Billed as "A story of war, love, loss and the scars they leave" this book is the story of three women and begins in 1941 as they are forced to watch their husbands go off to war. Millie, Grace and Babe hold down the home-front while everyone dreads being the next recipient of a telegraph from the war front. Their story continues after the war, as they and their families deal with war and its aftermath. The reader also sees the women through the 50's and 60's, as they face the changes and upheava...more

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Jul 25, 2011 Jill rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

“War…next to love, has captured the world’s imagination,” said the British lexicographer Eric Partridge in 1914. And indeed it has. As schoolchildren, we rapidly become acquainted with The Naked and the Dead, All Quiet on the Western Front, For Whom The Bell Tools, From Here to Eternity, Catch 22, Slaughterhouse Five…the list goes on and on.

But here’s what we don’t read about: the personal battles that are fought on the home front. We don’t get an upfront-and-personal look about the women behind...more “War…next to love, has captured the world’s imagination,” said the British lexicographer Eric Partridge in 1914. And indeed it has. As schoolchildren, we rapidly become acquainted with The Naked and the Dead, All Quiet on the Western Front, For Whom The Bell Tools, From Here to Eternity, Catch 22, Slaughterhouse Five…the list goes on and on.

But here’s what we don’t read about: the personal battles that are fought on the home front. We don’t get an upfront-and-personal look about the women behind the men and what war means to them…and to the children they create together.

Next To Love starts out very strong. We meet three childhood friends in Massachusetts – Babe, Millie, and Grace – whose men are on the cusp of going off to World War II. Ms. Feldman deftly juggles their stories and breathes life into their characters. Grace is the beauty who is married to the heir of one of the town’s most illustrious citizens and has a young daughter; Millie is married to Pete, the pharmacist’s son; and Babe is the feisty wrong-side-of-the-tracks gal who is in a committed relationship with an upstanding man who wants to become a teacher.

The period details are handled beautifully. Ellen Feldman summons up an age where instant communication (cell phones, Internet, etc.) did not exist and when lovers wrote their heart out in letters. It’s an age where women were divided into “nice girls” and “tramps” and men kept a stiff upper lip and talked about “honor” and “duty.” And it’s an age when the telegram is feared and one town could suddenly lose several of its beloved American boys overnight.

“The husbands speak the language of drills, marches, and officers who don’t know which end is up; the wives speak the dialect of carping landladies, dirty bathrooms and no hot water to wash their hair, and endless spirit-killing games of bridge. Since there is no common tongue between them, they communicate in sex,” writes Ms. Feldman. In this aspect, the book calls to mind another excellent one: Siobhan Fallon’s You Know When The Men Are Gone.

Profound change comes after the war. The novel takes on a lot in a scant 300 pages and the characters I had come to love in the first half begin to feel a little bit like stand-ins as the forces of history flow past. Yet Ms. Feldman’s riveting style keeps the reader in a “what’s next?” mode.

We are at their side as they try to understand the men who have been forever changed by the horrors of war; one of them has what would be called post-traumatic stress disorder today. We see the toll it takes on their young children who can only fantasize about the fathers they have never met. And we are on the sidelines of what is now familiar milestones: the way that black veterans are shuffled aside after the war, unable to participate in the new prosperity; the treatment of women as frivolous things, not worthy of jobs or deep thoughts; the bigotry against Jews, ironically, after a war where six million of them were callously murdered.

Ultimately, the book is focused on female friendship – at turns, courageous, poignant, and fragile. The friendships are not idealized, but rather portrayed to be sustaining and enduring. At its core, it is about survival through life, love, children, war, grief, and resurgence, delivered with just the right amount of drama and intensity.

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Aug 02, 2011 Michelle added it · review of another edition

Most post-war novels focus on either those left behind during the war or the impact of the war on the returning soldiers. Ms. Feldman opts to focus on those left behind and how their lives change because their soldiers do (or do not) return. What did it mean to have to give up a job because the position needs to be vacated for a returning soldier and a wife's place is in the home? How does one adjust to married life when marriage only consisted of brief weekends together and many years apart? Wh...more Most post-war novels focus on either those left behind during the war or the impact of the war on the returning soldiers. Ms. Feldman opts to focus on those left behind and how their lives change because their soldiers do (or do not) return. What did it mean to have to give up a job because the position needs to be vacated for a returning soldier and a wife's place is in the home? How does one adjust to married life when marriage only consisted of brief weekends together and many years apart? What happens if one's husband does not return? Next to Love takes post-war literature to another emotional and psychological level while giving those who are generations removed from this "Greatest Generation" an entirely new perspective on the hardships conquered, both during and after the war.

Babe, Grace, and Millie are three very different women but who personify an entire generation of women. While not on the front lines, they each had to face serious loss and deprivations that changed their perceptions of life and of themselves forever. Babe struggles to find herself after the loss of her job at the Western Union office, while Grace and Millie each face their own personal struggles of identity. Each woman uses her own strengths to overcome those losses. While none of them considered her actions to be extraordinary, they invariably set the stage for the revolutionary changes that occurred in the 1950s and 1960s.

Alternating between the points of view of the three women, the reader is drawn into the drama that encompasses each woman's life. Ms. Feldman handles sensitive topics with the delicacy and skill it deserves. At no point in time does she waver into the melodramatic, nor do her words come across as cold and dispassionate. Rather, all three characters come to life with a vibrancy and clarity that accentuates Ms. Feldman's writing ability. The mental image created by her words is crystal clear, and a reader has no problems picturing life in post-war small-town U.S.A. Next to Love is a novel that does much to explain this generation to readers, while creating a lasting tribute to the women who were forced to pick up the pieces after all the men left and then do it all over again when they came back.

Next to Love is simply a beautiful period novel, one that not only helps readers fully recall what life was like both during and after World War II from a smaller perspective but also one that gives greater meaning to an entire generation. A reader has a increased appreciation for the changes wrought by this generation and can better sympathize their efforts. Yet, Ms. Feldman takes it one step further and allows the reader to completely empathize with Babe, Grace, and Millie through her gorgeous imagery. Next to Love is a breathtaking, emotional journey through one of the most tumultuous periods of American history.(less)

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Dec 05, 2012 Katie rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book was an interesting take on the effects WW2 had on women and their relationships. It was very heartbreaking so if you are looking for a happy and light read, this is not it. The book mostly focuses on three women who grew up as friends and how they deal with their individual tragedies.
The hardest part of the book for me was the format. It changed point of views between each of the three main characters for certain blocks of time and was written in present tense. This made it hard to fol...more

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Sep 05, 2012 Sandy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

War takes a terrible toll on those fighting and on those back on the homefront. Feldman’s Next to Love explores the story of three friends who experience firsthand the loss of innocence and the devastation due to lives taken too early during WW II. Babe, Grace and Millie all marry just before their new husbands leave to fight in Europe. The women are young and in love, anxiously writing letters to their spouses. As part of the new workforce of woman taking on jobs previously held by men, Babe wo...more War takes a terrible toll on those fighting and on those back on the homefront. Feldman’s Next to Love explores the story of three friends who experience firsthand the loss of innocence and the devastation due to lives taken too early during WW II. Babe, Grace and Millie all marry just before their new husbands leave to fight in Europe. The women are young and in love, anxiously writing letters to their spouses. As part of the new workforce of woman taking on jobs previously held by men, Babe works in the telegraph office, pasting the telegraphed messages that come in from the war office. Thus she is the first to see the messages her two friends will be getting about their husbands’ deaths. Her friends, Grace and Millie, will face raising their children without husbands but the three women band together, offering each other support.
Only Babe is lucky enough to have her husband return, but he’s not the same man and his night sweats and terrors scare her. Her life is not untainted; she loses the baby she conceived before he left and they never get a second chance at having children. Claude, her husband, is badly damaged and his gentle touch is a thing of the past. Grace, morning her loss, builds a photographic monument to her dead husband and won’t even consider letting another man get close to her for many years. Millie however is open to finding a new man. Over time, new families emerge and yet they too have problems.
The book has moving images of people scarred and frightened; of the psychological devastation of war. It also follows the women and their families through the post war years: the boom in suburban housing, women’s changing role, the Civil Rights movement, the anti-Semitism of many Americans, and raising children in the absence of the fathers they never knew.
Feldman has a real feel for the time period she covers and all her characters are multi-dimensional and troubled. While we may often perceive the WW II veterans to be part of “The Greatest Generation”, there still was a heavy price they paid for the ugliness and terror of the long war. The scars are reminiscent of Vietnam vets who came back with serious psychological issues. The toll on those left behind as well as the vets themselves, is Feldman’s focus and she takes care as she explores her characters’ attempts to put a broken world back together while the world moves forward. Touching and sad, this story will resonate with all whose lives have been touched by war.
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Sep 04, 2012 Gloria rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I enjoyed the book thoroughly beause the theme had a plot that held my interest and kept the story going from the buid up of WWII through the years following the war. I was drawn into the war build up, the lives of the the three characters Babe, Grace and Millie and how their lives changed due to loss and grief and personal tragedy within the world war II years and after. Some of the themes that were intertwined in the plot one would never think of happening. Babe's encounter with the soldier pr...more

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May 21, 2012 Barbara Mitchell rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I won this book, which is coming out May 15th, from LibraryThing. If you are in a book club, I hope you'll consider reading it for discussion. I think it would spark quite a conversation about the life, loves, and responsibilities of women in marriage, regardless of whether they have children and regardless of the age in which they live.

The book spans the years from just before World War II through 1964, and the only complaint I have is that segments go back and forth between a few years which m...more I won this book, which is coming out May 15th, from LibraryThing. If you are in a book club, I hope you'll consider reading it for discussion. I think it would spark quite a conversation about the life, loves, and responsibilities of women in marriage, regardless of whether they have children and regardless of the age in which they live.

The book spans the years from just before World War II through 1964, and the only complaint I have is that segments go back and forth between a few years which makes it a bit confusing. The main characters are Babe, Millie, and Grace who we follow through high school friendship, to heartbreak and hardship caused by the war, and on to mature married life and motherhood (or not). Babe is the one we get to know best and some of her decisions in life are bound to cause a visceral reaction in anyone over the age of 30. She is the one who arguably is most mature of the three.

World War II is the defining moment of the lives of their husbands and therefore of these three women. They live in small town America and each is a sort of everywoman that we can all relate to in some way. During the war some of the town's families lose a son and/or husband on D-Day or another battle. Some families never recover from that loss. Other young men return home emotionally, psychologically broken, shell shocked, healing only very gradually through their adult lives. Others who have served their country valiantly come home expecting to be treated like first-class citizens but instead find the old class system intact.

We also see through these women the changes in America through the decades, particularly in the 60s. Bigotry is as common in their small town as it is anywhere else in the country, and persecution of Jews as well. We see the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement even in this little place far from the action, and we see how hard it is for many of the older generation to accept those changes.

My reaction to Next to Love is mixed. Perhaps it's been too long for me to go back to how people felt in the 50s and 60s, but maybe it's just that the views disgust me. I can't deny that the book strikes a chord in my mind, but it also makes me long for bigotry and racism and anti-Semitism to be gone already. We were so hopeful in the 60s that we could do away with such awful things yet they remain.

The struggles of Babe, Millie, and Grace to find a happy life will resonate with women, and probably find a place in the hearts of women who are the mothers and wives of returning soldiers today. I recommend this book.(less)

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Apr 28, 2012 Barb rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was an early review book that I was surprised to receive and eager to read. It was compared to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society and Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, both which I found informative, fun, and pulled me in as if I knew the characters. Although Ellen Feldman uses words well and crafts wonderful phrases in Next To Love I could not make myself really care about the characters and their lives. Babe, Grace and Millie could be my mother, aunts and their friends a...more

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Apr 19, 2012 Denise rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Denise by: goodreads.com

Shelves: marital-relationship, wwii, womens-issues, bc-book-browse

Received this book as an advance copy from Random House

“War…next to love, has most captured the world’s imagination” – Eric Partridge, 1914 (believe he is a famous lexicographer and author who served in the Australian Imperial Force during WWI). This quote begins Ellen Feldman’s book about WWII’s effect on the family members and community stateside. A refreshing take from the abundance of WWII era books set in Europe.

Appreciated the author’s choice to write about characters afflicted with menta...more

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Apr 17, 2012 Tim Knier rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Babe Huggins is a woman who needs no introduction—and she doesn’t get one until the second chapter. Ellen Feldman’s “Prologue” is an interesting device to throw the reader into the middle of action before detailing the actor.

We eventually discover that Babe is Bernadette Dion who marries Claude Huggins. Together with chums Grace Painter and Millie Vaughn, Babe’s life unfolds over a 20-year period. The study of the trio’s lives is couched in the seminal notion that war impels lovers into conseque...more

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Apr 15, 2012 Naberius rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I liked how the author begins with one character, Babe, and takes us with her through the years. At first, it seems like she's not really friends with the other women in the small town she lives in, but then it seems like the fact that most of the men from the town are going off to war draws them together. I found this interesting -- because I think that if it weren't for that, then these women wouldn't have enough in common to bond together at all. I also liked how the author told parts of the...more I liked how the author begins with one character, Babe, and takes us with her through the years. At first, it seems like she's not really friends with the other women in the small town she lives in, but then it seems like the fact that most of the men from the town are going off to war draws them together. I found this interesting -- because I think that if it weren't for that, then these women wouldn't have enough in common to bond together at all. I also liked how the author told parts of the story through the viewpoints of other characters --- it not only gave a balance to the story, but sometimes, it gave more insight into one of them, like Babe, or a general situation.

The author wrote in her acknowledgments that the inspiration for this novel came from a real group of young men from the town of Bedford, Virginia. Those 19 men, from a town of 3,000 all dies in the first minutes of landing on Omaha Beach on D-Day ... and that this was the greatest one-day loss suffered by any town in America. The real-life elements in this story really made it feel very personal, and I found I really cared about what was happening to the people in the story. I didn't find it difficult to imagine what life would have been like for these women, left at home while the men went to war ... but I had often wondered about what it was like for men who returned home after being at war, and the author gave me that, as well. Babe's husband comes back a changed man, and it's clear that the atrocities he witnessed while in combat have had a significant impact on him.

I found this book to be a fast read, mostly because the pace is even, and I was pretty engrossed in the story. If you have read the books mentioned in the GoodReads review, and liked them, I'd recommend this book. If you haven't read those books, but you find this period of history interesting, or like stories about womens' lives, you also might enjoy this book. The author doesn't shy away from real-life situations in this time period, like women who chose to work outside the home (and then had to face giving up their jobs when the men came home), and even some of the racial tensions that existed during the 1940s and 1950s. I think this would make a great book for book groups, because I could see it generating some good discussions.(less)

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Nov 15, 2011 Kate Quinn rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"Three women and their men, friends linked forever by the tragedies of WWII." Aha, I thought when I read that brief description of "Next To Love." One of those female-friends books which has almost nothing about the men, all about women growing strong during the war. How happy I was to be wrong: this is a book that solemnly watches three couples, men and women, not only through the war years but the years after: their suffering, their triumphs, their poignant and tentative advances into the futu...more

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Nov 09, 2011 Pamela Todd rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: ebook, historical-fiction, read-in-2011, romance, women-s-fiction

Next to Love is the most gut-wrenching, romantic, devastating and best book I have read this year. Bar none.

The novel centres around three friends – Babe, Millie and Grace as their husbands and boyfriends get pulled into the second World War. What I loved about this book was it showed in raw detail what it was like to be the ones left behind and how home could be just as wrecking as the home front.

The author didn’t hold back on a single thing and the stark honesty was like a powerful fist with...more

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Nov 02, 2011 Judith Starkston rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, strong-women

Next to Love is big in scope while everyday in focus and beautiful in its entirety. It spans the American years from December 1941 to August 1965 (from WWII to the Gulf of Tonkin). The novel has multiple narrative points of view and its topic, the effects of war, is that eternally huge one that human history never manages to escape. That’s big, although at 320 pages, I don’t mean that it is a long book.

And yet, rather than the epic and larger-than-life action that war novels often involve, Next...more Next to Love is big in scope while everyday in focus and beautiful in its entirety. It spans the American years from December 1941 to August 1965 (from WWII to the Gulf of Tonkin). The novel has multiple narrative points of view and its topic, the effects of war, is that eternally huge one that human history never manages to escape. That’s big, although at 320 pages, I don’t mean that it is a long book.

And yet, rather than the epic and larger-than-life action that war novels often involve, Next to Love portrays the world of the women left behind, then returned to (or not), and the lives they and their children build under the influence of the ever-present, but rarely-discussed war, an influence that does not disappear even as new wars take over the headlines. In an interview posted on her website, Ellen Feldman put it this way, “I am interested in the monumental events of history, but in human terms. By writing fiction, I can explore how individuals influence history and how history shapes personal lives.”

This domestic focus and lack of a grand canvas of action could be boring, but in Feldman’s hands it never is. We’re tugged ever forward by the skill of her character building, the emotional honesty and depth, the engagement we feel with each of these women, Babe, Millie and Grace, and their loved ones. One other note about writerly skill. Although the main movement of the book is chronological, Feldman also manages to move us more fluidly back and forth, so that, for example, we see a scene through one of the children’s eyes and then the story carries on without our realizing that we’ve moved back in time until we reach that same moment again, only through another pair of eyes. I was never confused at all, only noted with admiration how smoothly the author brought us back to a particular moment and thus gave the reader an epiphany arising from the contrasting understandings. To pull off without a hitch such a subtle and complex use of the timeline seems to me masterful. As a writer I’m envious of such talent.

Feldman is particularly adept at portraying the complexities of marriage. The darkest struggles that ought to sink a relationship are sometimes survived and turn into the richest bonds. The outward perfection can reveal an empty core that gradually destroys its participants. Children’s unthinking cruelties are tossed upon their parents as we all know they can be, and at the same time those same children clearly love and need their parents.

The momentous events of the years after the war—the Civil Rights movement, for example—show up not as marches on Washington or bus strikes but as tensions between maids and employers, between children determined to reject the places assigned to them and the parents who are terrified of the consequences of such rebellion, and also as a quiet understanding between a man and a wife along with a new job. That’s the kind of deep, dug-in reality that the book achieves—not loud and public, but exactly as so many men and women must have experienced these years, day by day.

And I hated putting it down. Its intimacy will grab you.
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Sep 25, 2011 Beth rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2011, arc-reading-challenge

Next To Love is the story of three women and the role World War II plays on their lives. In the beginning of the story Babe, Grace and Millie all end up sending their men off to fight World War II. The three women have to deal with the separation of war and the constant fear of receiving bad news. Babe works in the Western Union office and gets to see the news that will change peoples lives on a daily basis. We see the women dealing with their lives back home while the men are off fighting the w...more Next To Love is the story of three women and the role World War II plays on their lives. In the beginning of the story Babe, Grace and Millie all end up sending their men off to fight World War II. The three women have to deal with the separation of war and the constant fear of receiving bad news. Babe works in the Western Union office and gets to see the news that will change peoples lives on a daily basis. We see the women dealing with their lives back home while the men are off fighting the war. Grace is a young mother and wife, while Millie is expecting her first child as their husbands leave to fight the war. All three women have been friends since childhood and stand by each other during this difficult time.

The next part of the story deals with the women and how their lives change after men come home, and the war is over. I really don't want to say too much as I want this review to be spoiler free. Let's just say the war has long lasting effects on all involved. There are losses and demons to be dealt with.

As the storyline continues, we see changes in American history that also brings changes to the three friends and their families. Reading this book made me realize how much our country changed in the time period that the book takes place, 1941-1964. I knew the Women's Movement and the Civil Rights Movement changed life as it was but never gave much thought to the technology changes during this time period. I never thought much of the correlation between all these changes and the war but after reading this book, I see now how World War II played a role in our country's changes.

The author has written this book in a way I found most unusual. Some of the time periods and chapters overlapped. It sounds confusing but as long as I read the heading on the chapter with the date, the story flowed smoothly. The story was told through the viewpoint of each of the women. I found it interesting to read about a certain event through the eyes of two different women. The way the story was told was very effective.

I enjoyed the nostalgia of this book. It took me a very different time in our history and made me understand my mother a bit more, seeing she lived through this time period herself. I enjoyed taking this journey with Babe, Grace and Millie. I highly recommend this book.(less)

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Sep 19, 2011 Alison rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I got teary before the end of the Prologue! This book moved me, entertained me, and took me someplace new.

It's no secret that I am a huge fan of novels set in the 1940s, so I have quite a few books of this era on my bookshelf. In company with The Book Thief, Sarah's Key and A Fierce Radiance, it's not often that a book impresses or surprises me. NEXT TO LOVE made me see this era in a whole new way.

Babe, Millie, and Grace, the narrators of this story, were changed by the war and its aftermath. Fr...more

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Sep 15, 2011 Ruth rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm usually a fan of light quick reads and while this book was not in either of those categories, I really enjoyed it. As noted above, the story follows Babe, Millie and Grace from early in WWII until the time their children are grown. It also follows Naomi, an African-American who was in school with them. We watch the men go off to war--and then see who comes home, and who doesn't. Some of the women spend the War working; others are busy with young ones. All of their lives are deeply effected b...more

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Aug 12, 2011 Louise rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction

The book begins in 1944 and ends in 1964. It tells the tale of three best friends: Babe, Grace, and Millie and how they cope with their trials and tribulations and the husbands they love.

It is a deeply moving story about war, friendships, and love. This book is also a bit different from most that tell tales of WW II in that it speaks about the war’s effect on society; not just on the men who fight, their families and friends.

My favourite character is Babe Huggins who works in the Western Union o...more

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Jul 29, 2011 Zohar - ManOfLaBook.com rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011

"Next to Love "by Ellen Feldman is a fictional book which follows three childhood friends before, during and after World War II.

Babe, Millie and Grace are childhood friends in a small town in Massachusetts. When the men are called to server their country they know their lives will change, but they don't realize w much.

Over the next decade, the women lose their innocence, struggle with their men, society and small town politics.

The first thing that struck me while looking at the b...more

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Jul 19, 2011 Girls Gone Reading rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The women in Next to Love (Babe, Millie, and Grace) all begin their marriages in the same naive way we all do. We understand, abstractly, that there will be complications on the horizon. But these problems seem far away and easy to handle. However the reality of our adulthood does not turn out the way we thought it would. Babe, Millie, and Grace do not end up in the lives they imagined before WWII, but they handle it together.

Or at least they try to.

Ironically, one main age gap that I found in N...more

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Jul 13, 2011 Holly (2 Kids and Tired) rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I've seen so many reviews of this book that just rave about it and give it the highest praise and once again, I am going to be in the minority and go against the popular opinion. The premise of the story is terrific: three women thrust into the struggle and stress of World War 2 are left alone when their husbands go off to fight. When the war ends, life goes on and America and its people are changed forever.

The novel is rich historically and provides a perspective of World War 2 that is interest...more

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Jul 06, 2011 Molly rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: everyone

Recommended to Molly by: TLC

Shelves: book-review

I absolutely love it when I can sit down with a book and become so lost in it, when I reach the end I can't believe it's over. Ellen Feldman and her novel Next To Love is one such book, and I am now a fan for life. I was taken back to another place in time, among characters who became a part of me, and a plot line that was real.

Normally, I feel a connection with all the characters but one will touch me more than the rest. Not so with these amazingly created characters. Grace, Millie and Babe al...more

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Jun 05, 2011 Anne rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have read a lot of books about WWII, that time in our countries history fascinates me and I love reading historical fiction about it. Ellen Feldman's Next to Love is one of the best books set in this time that I have read. The story is a about three best friends and the men they love and how they get through World War II and the years after.

Babe, Millie, and Grace are the three friends in the book and all three are given a lot of time to grow into very interesting characters that I really fel...more

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Jul 07, 2011 Lisa Eskra rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Next to Love is a historical romance that follows the lives of three girlfriends from 1941 to 1964. It's easy to read, and I think anyone who enjoys the genre will probably like this book. The drama of families coping with war wounds is still timely and relevant. I think many military wives/girlfriends understand the struggles and fears embodied by the main characters.

The prologue is great. I'd hoped the rest of the book would've had the same tension and mystique, but it gets taken over by roman...more Next to Love is a historical romance that follows the lives of three girlfriends from 1941 to 1964. It's easy to read, and I think anyone who enjoys the genre will probably like this book. The drama of families coping with war wounds is still timely and relevant. I think many military wives/girlfriends understand the struggles and fears embodied by the main characters.

The prologue is great. I'd hoped the rest of the book would've had the same tension and mystique, but it gets taken over by romance. I didn't connect to any of the characters until almost halfway through the book; they're defined by their husbands/boyfriends so their development was lacking (less so with Babe but definitely the case for Grace and Millie). The novel follows the three synchronous romances without much development in the way of the women's friendships. They didn't strike me as best friends since kindergarten as it's mentioned they are. Their interactions seem little more than neighborly for the 40's or 50's. A minor gripe but I kept asking myself, "How/why are there women friends?"

Once WWII comes to a close, characterization improves. I enjoyed the different aspects of post-war life conveyed by the three different women. But they should've been the only point-of-view characters. Halfway through the book, minor characters are getting their own scenes. There are also a number of point-of-view inconsistencies, stemming from the fact that the book simply has too many points of view. The story lost its focus, and I didn't know who the important characters were anymore.

Apart from Babe's early storyline, the novel itself was rather blah. From 1952 to the end, the effect of the war has deteriorated and so has what made the first half of the book interesting. I didn't feel enough immersiveness in the era the book is set in for a historical novel. There's really no plot, the reader just follows these women's sometimes turbulent lives. The novel covers too wide a time period; I thought there'd be more focus on WWII based on the back cover blurb, but that's really only the first half of the book. The ending was predictable, though the story almost petered out before getting to it.

A fast read and an interesting premise, I just could not get into it. Too mundane, too much of a romance, and just not very well-written.(less)

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Mar 03, 2012 Alena rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: random-house

3. 5 stars
I won this Advance Reader Copy through Random House.
When I read the book’s description, I wondered how many “women left behind by WWII” stories there could possibly be. I was very pleasantly surprised to discover Ellen Feldman has come through with a strong offering. Despite its familiar premise of three best friends left adrift in small-town America, Feldman scratches deeper into the agonies of war than the opening would suggest. We see the tragedy of war from multiple viewpoints. Dea...more

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Jun 17, 2011 Elizabeth of Silver's Reviews rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

LOVED IT….

Men leaving, women hoping, both wanting to return to normal, but.......WW II was on the verge of beginning.

Millie, Grace, and Babe were the best of friends and endured the time while their husbands were gone. They passed the time writing letters to them and waiting for letters in return. Two weeks passed without any word from their husbands and that could only mean one thing. When the Telegram from the War Department arrived, it confirmed their worst nightmare.

The book was nostalgic,...more

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Jun 19, 2012 Cc rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Sometimes I wish I could rate these books with 1/2 stars.. 3 1/2 would be a better rating. The story of the people's lives during the WWII and after has been told been told. Feldman does a good job of bringing in some differences in the lives of the 3 women, but at times I was not really captured by these 3 women.. it seemed like she was just skimming the "just below the surface" of their lives. Many of the dilemmas and struggles resolved just by time and moving on.. which I guess is how people...more

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Jun 08, 2012 Jacqueline rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I borrowed this book from the library after reading some reviews on Goodreads.com. It had come up as a recommendation and was a book that was similar to one that I had read and loved, so I decided to try it. "Next to Love" was not totally what I expected; I thought it would be more about a love story or two that spanned the war. Instead, while it did follow love stories through the war and afterwards, it really chronicled how the war obliterated love in some ways and how the war did not end in 1...more

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May 18, 2012 Lauren rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: top-of-2012, 2012-reads

I originally saw this book as a giveaway on Good Reads, and though I did not win it, I couldn’t get the description out of my head. “Sometimes the most interesting war stories are not about the soldiers themselves but about the loved ones they leave behind.” I waited a month or two to get it from my library, but I was not disappointed. I had heard it likened to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, and true, the story does cover WWII and its impact back home, as well as the years fo...more I originally saw this book as a giveaway on Good Reads, and though I did not win it, I couldn’t get the description out of my head. “Sometimes the most interesting war stories are not about the soldiers themselves but about the loved ones they leave behind.” I waited a month or two to get it from my library, but I was not disappointed. I had heard it likened to The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, and true, the story does cover WWII and its impact back home, as well as the years following, but the two aren’t very similar at all. Guernsey is about flourishing; a woman finding her way in the world in a turbulent time. Next to Love is about resilience; three best friends learn how to move on, when every fiber of their being is screaming that it cannot be done.

The book covers the time before the war, during the war, and after the war, divided into different books, grouped together with consecutive years. Within these books, the story shifts perspectives between Babe, Millie, and Grace, along with a few more minor characters, to give a very detailed, very well-rounded account of the war and its impact on the people back home.

“War… next to love, has most captured the world’s imagination.” - Eric Partridge, 1914

This quotation in the first few pages grabbed me before I even started reading the book. I am always curious as to how books get their titles, and to find the answer in such a poignant quotation was moving for me. As I turned to the prologue two pages later, my attention was grabbed by Babe Higgins, the young woman who is in charge of sending out telegrams from the War Office to the devastated families in her small town and feels a sick sense of pleasure, being the first to know when tragedy has struck. Babe, a young woman bursting with ambition and ideas, is a strong woman for that time, questioning policies and pushing the envelope whenever she can. Her two childhood best friends, Millie and Grace, are more content to sit back and become housewives. All three, however, have their lives turned upside down when their lovers are drafted in WWII.

This book was incredibly, incredibly dramatic, emotional, and moving. I cannot say how many times I had to set the book down and take a step back because of how heavy the mood got. I was impressed by how wholly I felt the pain of these characters; the raw pain, the desperate hope, the slap of prejudice, the heartbreak of lost love, the sting of betrayal, the idolization of someone you barely knew and will never get back… All of it was so incredibly well-written. I also like the way Feldman wrote each of the three girls; they all deal with their grief in different ways, and no one seems to understand each others’ processes, but they remain friends through it all. This isn’t a book about friendship, though: it’s a book about keeping calm and carrying on. Each of the women has their own pain, their own loss, and their own road to recovery that the reader experiences close-up.

The ending is content, not overly happy, but realistic. Altogether, I was very impressed by the book, and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoyed The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and The Help.(less)

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Mar 04, 2012 Rose Ann rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: giveaways-contests, read-in-2012

3.5 Cant decide between 3 and 4 stars....may change it.
A story of three friends who watch their husbands go off to war in the 40's.
This story is of each of them, and their lives during the war and after.
The effects on each woman and their families.
And some of the soldiers as well.
I really felt like I was getting a true feel for what it was like during this time and felt like I knew the characters.
When I wasn't reading, I was thinking about them.

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About Ellen Feldman

Ellen Feldman, a 2009 Guggenheim fellow, is the author of Scottsboro, The Boy Who Loved Anne Frank, and Lucy. She writes both fiction and social history, and has published articles on the history of divorce, plastic surgery, Halloween, the Normandie, and many other topics, as well as numerous book reviews. She has also lectured extensively around the country and in Germany and England, and is a so...more

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“The official line is that, after the war, women couldn't wait to leave the offices and assembly lines and government agencies. But the real story was that the economy couldn't have men coming home without women going home, not unless it wanted a lot of unemployed vets. So the problem became unemployed women. "How you gonna keep us down on the farm after we've seen the world,"' she ad-libs to the old World War I tune. 'Enter the women's magazines, and cookbook publishers, and all these advertising agencies carrying on about the scourge of germs in the toilet bowl, and scuffs on the kitchen floor, and, my favorite, house B.O. Enter chicken hash that takes two and a half hours to prepare. I can just hear them sitting around the conference tables. 'That'll keep the gals out of trouble.” — 1 person liked it

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