Book Review for Henrietta's War

This was a book that was on my wish list and that I received in a Books and Bloggers Swap  back in January.  I started reading this book at the end of March. I am just now finishing it.  That says something about the book as it is only 185 pages and should have taken me only a day or two to read had it called to me and held my interest longer than a few minutes at a time.  

It wasn't that it was a bad book. It was written in letter form and illustrated with photos.  The protagonist, Henrietta, is a doctor's wife who is living in England during World War II.  I have been reading a lot of WWII books lately and they have been very heavy and disturbing.  This showed the war from the eyes of the wealthy who lived in rural England and made much ado of the slight suffering that was suffered as compared with what was happening to the common folk in Europe during Hitler's regime.  

I know that this was probably a pretty true depiction of many people's experience of WWII including those of us who were safe here in the USA and whose biggest burden was having our loved one's away from home and in harm's way.  We, I imagine, also felt burdened by the shortages caused by the war and frustrated at how litttle we, at home, were able to help in the effort to stop the madness that was Hitler.

Henrietta was flighty and inane in her writings but you got the impression that she was much deeeper than she was willing to let on in her letters and that her writings were meant to be more of a distraction for her friend who was away at battle.  Some of her drawings and prose had me laughing out loud. 

Perhaps the problem wasn't so much the novel as it was my frame of mind.  I would be very interested in hearing other's opinions on this book.  Have you read it?  What did you think?

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