Review: The Alice Network (by Kate Quinn)

My Rating: 5 stars

In the past few months, I've read my fair share of books either set in or about WWII and a handful about WWI, but up to this point, I hadn't read anything that covered BOTH wars.  The Alice Network by Kate Quinn did just that – it presented a wonderfully written, captivating dual timeline story about two women from different generations, their lives impacted by the wars in different ways, whose paths eventually cross when fate brings them together.  In the first narrative, which takes place in 1947, we meet Charlie St. Clair, a feisty American college girl from a well-to-do family who had just gotten herself into major "trouble" by becoming pregnant out of wedlock. She is banished to Europe to "take care of" the problem of her pregnancy, after which she would be accepted back into the family again, but once there, Charlie runs off instead to search for her cousin Rose, whom she loved like a sister, holding out hope that Rose might still be alive despite disappearing a few years back in Nazi-occupied France during WWII.  Charlie's search brings her to the door step of Eve Gardiner, a woman in her fifties who looks much older due to years of drinking herself to oblivion in efforts to escape the "ghosts" of her past.  Through Eve, we are transported back to 1915, during the Great War (WWI), when she is recruited to join the Alice Network, a network of female spies across Europe who collected intelligence for the Allied forces to use against the enemy.   Eve is sent to German-occupied France where she meets other members of the network as well as its fearless leader Lili, who also goes by the name Alice Dubois.  From there, we are given insight into the fascinating yet complex world of espionage as we follow Eve's life as a spy and bear witness to the horrific experiences she and the others go through as well as the great risks they take for their countries. 

I'm drawn to books with strong female protagonists and with this one, we get plenty of them in the characters of Eve, Charlie, Lili, and even side characters such as Violette and Rose.  It wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that I grew to love the characters in this story and found myself rooting for them to the very end.  The author did a great job with the characterizations of the main players especially – defiant and rebellious Charlie, whose love for her cousin and her family despite all the issues really enamored her to me; hot-tempered Eve whose experiences during the war left her broken and hardened toward life, choosing to spend the rest of her days drinking, cursing, and threatening to blow people's brains out with her ever-present Luger, yet I have nothing but utmost respect and admiration for her;  the charming Scotsman Finn, who captured my heart from the start with his sense of humor and personality and the way he stood supportively by Eve despite the way she often treated him.  I loved Lili too, even though she technically wasn't the main character of the story despite being the key figure off of which the Alice network is based.  All of these characters were fictitious, but some were based on real people and I was surprised to read in the Author's Note at the end of the book all the factual elements that drove the story.  The history fanatic in me is grateful that the author listed so many of her sources as well as all the additional material at the end of the book – I actually wrote down quite a few of the titles for further reading, as this book triggered my curiosity about the real Alice network and I want to find out more about it as well as the women whose stories were touched upon in this book.

I liked how the author addressed the various societal issues that were prevalent during Eve's time period as well as Charlie's.  Gender issues, class issues, attitudes toward women, impact of war, etc. – it was interesting to see how all of that was dealt with in both eras and how, sadly, there is much that hasn't changed, even today.  This book brought to light the challenges of being a spy, especially a female one, due to the double standards that existed – it was disheartening to see how these brave women risked their lives day in and day out while already getting little reward or recognition for their work, yet they still had to battle the gender stereotypes imposed on them internally, at times even having to "fight" to be believed or trusted!  There was one part where Eve finds out one of her reports was brushed aside and not believed by the higher ups, resulting in disastrous consequences that could have been prevented, which leads her to question whether everything she and the other women in the Alice network did were in vain – it was heartbreaking to read but it also angered me, especially when I found out (from the Author's Note) that this was a true event that happened to the real Alice Dubois.

I was also fascinated by the world of espionage and the lives of the female spies as depicted in the book.  Earlier in the year,  I had read a nonfiction book about female spies during the WWII era, but I feel like I learned more from this fictionalized account than that nonfiction one -- the way that author Kate Quinn was able to take real events and people and integrate them so seamlessly into a fictionalized story, yet still maintain such historical accuracy truly speaks to her skill and talent as a writer of historical fiction.  I'm definitely interested in reading her other works at some point in the future.

This book is highly recommended and even though it didn't "blow me away" like other war-themed books have, I still loved it nonetheless!  And I totally agree with other reviewers who have said that once they started reading the book, it was hard to put down – I ended up plowing through the entire 500+ page book in 3 days (which is a record for me!), neglecting the other books I had already started and will now need to get back to, lol.  If you pick this one up, be ready for an engrossing story and a hugely enjoyable read!