Sandy 12/11

A very well-done story about PTSD as a couple readjust to a world after war. Both husband and wife, in their own different ways, fought the battles of Poland during WWII and then are reunited to create a post war marriage. Very unique look at what it must really be like...

I love that book very much. I picked that from the " What's new" shelf, and never regretted that. 6 years of separation is really uneasy for a couple. I nearly had my tears ( but happy ones ) for the ending. It will be very lovely if we have those nice, caring and supportive neighbours these days!

He looks up and meets her eyes. “It’s hard to know how to go on.” He searches for words, a way to explain how he needs her to make sense of his life. He can understand nothing of the last six years. All that happened, the way he left Warsaw and didn’t go back, the love he feels for another woman, the war and all its bloody awfulness; all of it is a jumble of jigsaw pieces and he never knows which he will pick up. All the time, he was hoping for peace; now it’s here, and he is like a man coming up to the light after years of living underground. It should be wonderful, but it’s not. He keeps pretending everything is all right, but the truth is his son hates him, his wife cries every night, and he still dreams of the woman he left. I absolutely love the novel, 22 Britannia Road, by Amanda Hodgkinson. It tells the story of a young couple who are separated right before the German army invades Poland. Janusz (pronounced Yanoosh) leaves his wife Silvana and their baby in order to join the Polish Army. Janusz becomes overwhelmed by the tragedies of war almost immediately, however, and doesn’t quite join. He also doesn’t come home. To his defense, he is really young and in a state of shock. Meanwhile Silvana, who is not as young, is at home with the baby. She is supposed to go to her mother in laws to wait out the war, but is understandably hesitant to do so. She is a very strong character who seems to think that she is bullet proof. She finds out quite quickly that she is not. And that is just the beginning of this wonderful story. The novel flips easy between the time that the couple is apart and the time after they are reunited. I cannot tell you how intriguing these characters are. I felt as though I cared deeply for each of them. I was unable to put the book down.

Not really believable. The circumstances were believable, but the characters reactions I just couldn't buy into.

Disappointing read after all the rave reviews. Another story of survivors coping with the aftermath of general devastation and personal tragedy, an average reading experience.

In Amanda Hodgkinson's debut novel, survivors of World War II try to reconstruct a life as a family in a new country. A husband, wife and son are reuniting after being apart for six years. On the surface, the three have all the ingredients for a happy ending: The wife and child are safe, and the husband has a job and a house for them. But nothing is ever so simple. Neither husband nor wife is the same person that each knew before the war; each has secrets about what happened during those long years apart. The house at 22 Britannia Road offers hope, and yet it can't protect its residents from the secrets they keep. Hodgkinson has a talent for introducing complicated characters who tear at your heart and keep you worrying and wondering about them. She also knows how to let secrets simmer and boil over in surprising ways