book data
158 ratings, 3.30 average rating, 46 reviews
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published
January 8th 2008
by Mariner Books
binding
Paperback, 336 pages
isbn
0618919783
(isbn13: 9780618919789)
description
During World War I, seventeen-year-old Frieda Mintz secures a job at a Boston department store and strikes out on her own, escaping her repressive Jew...more
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 277)
Read in March, 2008
Fictional book about venereal disease camps during WWI. Young girls who had tragic one night stands with soldiers are marginilized and dumped in with prostitutes into these camps that treat a womens' body as vectors of disease. I wanted it to piss me off but it came off as a little too easy on this part of history.
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Read in September, 2007
There are things that authors do that I don't like:
1. They make their protagonist into their alter ego.
2. They make their protagonist into the oppostite sex from themselves but poorly so.
3. They oversaturate the story with landmarks to show you they really know their stuff.
This novel is guilty of the last two. This author has never been a prostitute. I never have, either, but I think I might be able to write about it better.
Also the book is filled with references to anything Bo...more
1. They make their protagonist into their alter ego.
2. They make their protagonist into the oppostite sex from themselves but poorly so.
3. They oversaturate the story with landmarks to show you they really know their stuff.
This novel is guilty of the last two. This author has never been a prostitute. I never have, either, but I think I might be able to write about it better.
Also the book is filled with references to anything Bo...more
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Read in October, 2008
This book is set during an ugly period of history that we were NOT taught in school. During WW1 women were unlawfully imprisoned (mostly prostitutes) and detained because they had STDs. The idea was to protect the soldiers so they could be healthy and go fight the Germans... Blame the women not the men.
These women were detained and "treated" for the illnesses. They had no rights and could have no contact with the outside world at all.
The story is about 17 year old Frieda wh...more
These women were detained and "treated" for the illnesses. They had no rights and could have no contact with the outside world at all.
The story is about 17 year old Frieda wh...more
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Read in May, 2008
Not bad. The story follows a young woman in Boston in 1917-1918 as she a) makes a life for herself after fleeing a repressive home, b) has unsafe sex with a serviceman and contracts STDs and c) is picked up by the authorities when she tries to see her "beau" and is incarcerated in a quarantine center.
The good: it looks at a phenomenon that few people are aware of. As a history buff, I knew about crackdowns on brothels and prostitution near military bases during the Great War. Ho...more
The good: it looks at a phenomenon that few people are aware of. As a history buff, I knew about crackdowns on brothels and prostitution near military bases during the Great War. Ho...more
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Read in September, 2006
recommends it for:
historical fiction aficionados
The protagonist of Michael Lowenthal’s engaging novel Charity Girl is one of the 50,000 women spuriously imprisoned by the U.S. Government during WWI. This sounds like a dull premise, but what bubbles up through the setup is a spirited, sexy romp through a Boston in the grip of war fever. Frieda Mintz, a 17-year-old Jewish shopgirl, likes fast cars, handsome young officers, dances, drinking, and the Red Sox; her resistance to parental authority and independent spirit mark her as something of a...more
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Read in January, 2008
This book introduced me to a bit of history I managed to miss, despite the numerous history and women's history classes I took along the way. Who knew women deemed "oversexed" if they had a venereal disease were rounded up and locked in detention centers (converted brothels) during WWI--to keep the men safe! Apparently, the men had nothing to do with the spread of STDs. The title comes from the name given to women who weren't prostitutes, but who were thought to have slept with mayb...more
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Read in March, 2008
Based on the true experiences of large numbers of young women during the WWI who had, or were suspected of having venereal diseases, caught by government authorities and locked up in asylums where they were subjected to a variety of useful and not so useful treatments, and when cured, turned over to the courts for potential prosecution as prostitutes. In "Charity Girl" we meet young Frieda who has fled her home where her mother was forcing her into marriage to a much older man. Getting...more
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Interesting piece of history. Girls were incarcerated during WWI in order to "protect" the men in service.The US government detained 30,000 women. Half of those were found to carry venereal diseases and were detained for months. Only one third of the arrested women were charged with prostitution. The majority were not charged with any offense. Sometimes, they were arrested for dressing provocatively or walking alone through certain neighborhoods.
The heroine in the book made some b...more
The heroine in the book made some b...more
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Read in August, 2007
In 1917, Frieda Mintz runs away from her strict Jewish Boston home and an arranged marriage. She finds work at an exclusive department store in New York, where she lives as a "charity girl," a shopgirl who rents a single room and lives paycheck to paycheck and relies on her dates to help her make ends meet. After losing her job, she is arrested as a "camp follower" and confined to a convalescent home, where she is treated for sexually transmitted diseases. Women were rout...more
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Read in February, 2008
Intriguing story about a young woman whose naive fling with a soldier during WWI lands her with VD and in an internment "camp" (so to speak). Who knew these places existed? The author does a good job of laying out the issues, but the story is a bit frustrating because Frieda is so young and naive. For example, she has a letter from Felix admitting his role in her predicament, but she doesn't realize its value. Her vulnerability is heartbreaking. The bigger picture of just how young wom...more
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While I enjoyed reading this book and found it interesting to learn about this time in history, I found the ending rather abrupt. One minute the plot is moving along, sometimes asking the reader to emphathize with Frieda, the next questioning her perceptions and judgements. In a book where everyone is right and wrong in an instant (like in life), the author suddenly switches modes and cuts off Frieda's progressive development, flashes forward and quickly moralizes the character into someone who...more
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This was not what I expected. I thought it would be more about the character's experience in a "girl's home" but the author takes a lot of time to describe what led to her imprisonment. Even though it was terrible these girls were locked up for having vd, given the situations they were in, imprisonment was actually better for some of them. They had food and housing at least. The author failed to give the reader a sense of anger about what happened and didn't give the main character ...more
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Read in September, 2008
Wasn't a bad book, but through the whole thing I just kept wishing that I was reading a nonfiction account of this period in our history, rather than some dramatized reenactment. Lowenthal isn't much for style. His writing is very plain, even in description. Still, it held my attention, and I whipped through it in a few days of reading. Plus, the ending was much better than I thought it would be which was a nice surprise. He listed a few books in his Author's Note that are nonfiction on the subj...more
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A really fascinating historical novel set during WWI, when women with STDs were imprisoned so they wouldn't infect soldiers. Young Frieda, a Jewish runaway, falls for such a soldier, who of course gives her the clap, and she's rounded up and locked up with a group of women. This part of the novel was stellar, but things start to fall apart towards the end and the book ends pretty abruptly with some serious deus ex machina. I wonder if the author was fascinated by his setting but didn't know wher...more
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Read in April, 2007
Another historical fiction which I kept expecting to descend into stereotype, but never quite fell over that cliff. The heroine had one night of passion and came up with a nasty VD. But the issue is really when this happened--during WWI, when many women, both prostitutes and others, were rounded up and placed in detention camps. Frieda is a wonderful character, and her reactions to her situation ring true. And it doesn't end completely perfectly (though for a while signs were pointing to a f...more
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Read in November, 2008
recommends it for:
my mom - she's a fan of soft porn novels
I just can't do it. I can't wade through the cheap attempt at pornographic descriptors that make my head dizzy! Oh my god. Perhaps the book is good but I only got through 40 pages and can't take any more. If if takes you this long to develop a plot (if there is one), perhaps I should refer you to my beginner's creative writing course professor. He'd beat the crap out of your overfluffed story. I know it's unfair to generalize but, when reading books like this, I'm reminded why I dislike fic...more
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Read in January, 2008
For historical detail, this is tops. (And I am a huge sucker for that, especially if you involve me in WWI or II.) The immediacy of the first-person narration is effective. Yet I somehow felt a bit . . . lectured to. It's hard to pull off an entirely sympathetic central character when your agenda comes first, I think, and while I appreciate the agenda, the character and all she's imbued with ring less true than I'd like. I'll still re-read, though, for the immersion experience in the period...more
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Read in July, 2008
For historical value, this book is top-notch. Who knew about the 30,000 young women detained by the U.S. government during WWI? In terms of literary merit, it's so-so. Some of the characters were a bit flat and, at times, I felt like I was being talked to. Still, it's worth a read, if you're interested in the subject. Or if you've ever wondered about Jules and Bill from All Of A Kind Family. They wouldn't ever spread an unspeakable disease to Ella and Grace...would they?
Read in January, 2008
The historical nugget that this book is gleaned from - during WWI,women suspected of "loose morals" and with VD were rounded up and held without charge or trial and forced to live in sometimes former brothels to be rehabilitated - is interesting and not that widely known. But her can't ever really get under the skin of the character, make her live, make her situation seem real. It falls flat while also being soap-opera-ish. May have been better as non-fiction...
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Read in October, 2007
This book is a historical novel set during WWI, and centers around a group of girls whoare basically imprisoned for having STDs--regardless of whether it was their fault for having contracted them. Interesting historical novel, with political implicaitons--and strange that this novel focuses on STDs instead of the flu epidemic of the same period. I would have liked to have more plot/information by the author after the main character leaves her internment.
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