The Lieutenant’s Girl

By: Shari J Ryan

NOTE – Special thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Pearl Harbor meets The Notebook.

Those are vibes I got reading this book by Shari J Ryan. This is the story of Elizabeth Salzberg, a young Jewish girl living in Hawaii at the time of the Pearl Harbor attacks. Her dad is a lieutenant on base and very protective of his family since losing his wife. Elizabeth, wanting to make a difference, is studying to be a nurse when Pearl Harbor is attacked. She enlists shortly afterwards and is shipped overseas where her courage is tested as she witnesses horror after horror.

As a huge fan of Shari Ryan, I was surprised to find I didn’t LOVE this book. I didn’t hate it or even dislike it but I didn’t LOVE it like I’ve loved her other books.

Here’s what I really enjoyed:

• The character growth of all the characters in this story. They all were affected by the war and what they’d witnessed and were forever changed by it.
• The writing was real. Real emotions. Real scenic descriptions. Real noises. I heard and felt it all.
• We got a complete story. Beginning to end. Watching Elizabeth grow in this story reminded me very much of watching Rilla grown in LM Montgomery’s Rilla of Ingleside.

Here’s what I didn’t enjoy:

• The dual timelines. Most of the time, I enjoy it but in this story, I found it distracting. It really was a little too much like The Notebook and honestly, while I never read the book, I’m in the minority that hated that movie. (I also hated the movie Pearl Harbor.) For some reason, I had a hard time keeping the family members all straight so it really didn’t add anything to the story to have Elizabeth’s current story being told while her past was unfolding.
• The pacing of the book. It felt unsteady to me. At times, it lagged and then it was fast forward and then we were in the present for a short time and then in the past where it would lag and then fast forward. I could just be a “me” issue but it made it difficult to read.

Overall, this was a nice book and a good story. I wish a few things had been different and it didn’t seem to fit in with the storytelling I’d grown accustomed to by Ms. Ryan but it was enjoyable.

My rating: :star: :star: :star: