GUNNER GIRLS AND FIGHTER BOYS by Mary Gibson

Note: I am not a paid reviewer, and I have purchased this title to read for my personal enjoyment.

A saga of the Lloyd family from Bermondsey in London, England through World War 2, primarily focused on the Blitz and, later, German rocket attacks. The book gives us a keen sense of the misery of working-class life along the Thames during the Blitz: Anderson shelters, explosions, fear, macabre scenes where everyday life should be, docks, blackout curtains, pub life, hunger, petty criminals and profiteers, piles of brick, and water hoses. The Lloyd family suffers death and deprivations, and is a proxy for the untold number of families of the time. Young daughter May finds the courage to “do her bit” by joining up as a gunner girl on an “ack ack” crew, and she and her sister Peggy are our protagonists, survivors who pursue loves that are convoluted and threatened by the war. Authenticity in dialect and setting is terrific, though throughout much of the book I felt I was on a level emotional plane, without the build-ups and peaks the subject matter suggests.