Poppy

Truth be told, I've been putting off reading this book for a while now due to no fault of its own. For a really long while, it just wasn't the book I wanted to read at the moment because it seemed slow and deep. Today, it's the second book I finish as I wait out a cyclone, and I can't believe I waited so long! Poppy, the first book in a series, centres around the life of a parlourmaid in a rich British house who becomes one of the 70,000 VADs (Voluntary Aid Deployments) in the First World War. This book covers the beginning of the war in 1914 up until the end of 1915 and covers the world perfectly. From patriotic and anti-German sentiments, the aristocracy and the working class, the mannerisms, social conduct, technology and language in the early 20th Century, Mary Hooper constructs a world so powerful you will believe you're in an episode of Downton Abbey. There were a lot of things I loved about Poppy, but truth be told, she seemed TOO good to be true, a generous, giving trusting girl with not even a single mean bone in her body. Do those even exist today? I did like her, a lot, but I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for her to seem more human, but nothing did. I guess I liked her, but I just didn't believe her. While Poppy herself could have been a slightly flawed character, one thing I ABSOLUTELY LOVED was the sentiment of people in the war, the everyday gruesomeness and the PURE EMOTION, that someone reading about in a History Textbook could never comprehend, making me look at the world wars in a completely different light. All in all, a book I'm sad I took so long to get to. 4 stars.