My Rating: 3.5 stars
I definitely enjoyed this sequel much more than the first book, Dear Mrs. Bird, which I had read right before this one. While the story continued more or less where the first one left off and the characters were all the same (with the exception of Mrs. Bird of course), I think I took to this book better perhaps because I kind of knew what to expect already — and perhaps that's also why I found the main character Emmy Lake a little less annoying this time around (though yes, she did still frustrate me at certain points).
With Mrs Bird's departure from Women's Friend magazine (not a spoiler, as it's in the book summary and she's already gone when the story opens), Mr. Collins has been promoted to Editor (no surprise there either, lol). After what happened at the end of the first book, Emmy is back with the magazine again, but on a probationary basis. While the magazine's advice column continues to be a focus, the crux of the story this time around is on the government's call to all of Britain's women's magazines to help recruit female workers for the war effort. As Emmy immerses herself in this task, she meets a few of the women who work at the munitions factories and soon realizes that, while they are all happy to contribute to the effort, there are real-life challenges they face that makes the war work much more difficult for them. When Emmy learns about their plight, she of course steps in and tries to help them any which way she can.
I think the direction that the author A.J. Pearce took with the story as well as with the characters this time around made so much more sense than the first book. I'm not sure how best to put it, but I felt like most of Emmy's actions in the first book were too over the top, to the point that it felt unrealistic and contrived. With this second go around though, her actions were more in line with her role in the sense that it made sense for her to constantly insert herself in situations, but in a more tempered way. Just for the record…I don't have a problem with Emmy's personality — in fact, I like the way her character was headstrong, curious, assertive, and always willing to stand up for what she believed in as well as help others, which was especially significant given the time period — what I actually had a problem with was the "bull in a china shop" approach that she seemed to apply to every single situation, especially at work. For example, in the first book, Emmy's job as a newbie at the magazine was to open letters and give them to her boss to review and type up a response, however because she doesn't like the restrictive (and rude) nature of her boss's responses, she decides to take matters into her own hands by deliberately defying her boss's instructions and writing letters to readers on her own (as well as sneaking some of her letters into the magazine itself). While it's fine to disagree and question how her boss does things, it's not fine, especially in her position, to go in and start changing things on her own (obviously, there were more rational ways to approach the situation than the way she did). In the second book, I assume because she has learned her lesson, Emmy's approach was a little more mature and above board (and as I mentioned earlier, definitely less grating on my nerves). I point all this out because I appreciate seeing characters grow and evolve in stories and even though in this case, it took a sequel for it to happen, I'm still glad to see it.
For those who read and loved Dear Mrs. Bird, I definitely recommend picking this one up, as I believe you'll love it just as much as the first (maybe even more). For those like me who may not have been a fan of the first book, I still recommend reading this one, as it did put the first book into better perspective for me (even though it didn't change my feelings overall toward the story and characters).
Received ARC from Scribner via NetGalley.
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