My Rating: 2.5 stars
For the second time this month, looks like I am once again an outlier who didn't like a book written by a popular author that everyone else seemed to really enjoy. In both instances, the reasons why I disliked the books were very similar, even though the genres, styles, and story lines were completely different (more on this later). The interesting thing is that, with both authors, I had read previous books by them and had enjoyed those immensely, but their newest releases I disliked to the point of nearly breaking my own rule and giving them the DNF treatment (in the end, I hung on, but barely, since I had to resort to skimming large sections of both books in order to get through them). It's also possible that the previous books were also problematic, but I didn't notice at the time, and now having evolved as a reader, I'm perhaps more critical of things that maybe didn't bother me before. Either way, both experiences have made me realize that I need to be even more selective with the books I decide to pick up (not that I wasn't selective before, as I've always been a lot pickier than most people I know when it comes to this stuff) – basically, I have enough to deal with in my life at the moment and I really don't want to add "frustrating reading experience" to it if I can help it…
Before I talk specifics about what bothered me with this particular book, I have to say that I did read Martha Hall Kelly's previous Lilac Girls series and thought those books were really well done – which is why I'm completely baffled as to how Kelly's newest release, The Golden Doves, ended up on the absolute opposite end of the spectrum for me. Initially, going into this book, I was actually expecting to like it, not only because I had enjoyed Kelly's previous works, but also because the genre is historical fiction (which is my favorite genre) and the premise really did sound interesting: two former female spies (the titular 'golden doves') who endured unspeakable atrocities during World War II join forces once again after the war is over to heroically take down a bunch of Nazi fugitives who had evaded justice. Given this description, I assumed that I would be getting a thrilling, fast-paced espionage story with two strong, kickass female protagonists at its center (yes, a la Kate Quinn, whose works I adore). Well, friends, that assumption was dead wrong! What I ended up getting instead was a plot hole-filled, unnecessarily draggy, poorly-written, boring (I could keep going with the negative adjectives, but I will stop here) story featuring two naïve, immature, annoying-as-hell, frustratingly pathetic (which, believe it or not, is an understatement) female protagonists who were so stereotypically written, it's not even funny. I mean, literally all you need to know is that Josie Anderson is American and Arlette LaRue is French – those identities essentially drive the entire story in that they dictate how the two women act, think, talk throughout much of this (unnecessarily long 500+ page) book. With Arlette especially, we are reminded time and time again throughout the entire story, both directly and indirectly, that she is a French woman (which to me, felt like the author was trying to use that to justify why Arlette behaves the way she does — namely, the constant flirting with men and always having to come across as 'sexy' and 'sensual'). And yes, both women were utterly unconvincing as spies – sure, it can be argued that both were recruited as teenagers (though this already doesn't make sense because why them??) so of course they would be immature, but the problem is, nearly a decade later, when they became grownups (both when they are apart and when they reunite), they still conducted themselves in exactly the same immature manner in nearly every circumstance.
For me, the biggest issue with this book was the way the characters were written, which can essentially be summarized in two words: unrealistic and unlikeable. First, Josie – she works as an agent at U.S. Army Intelligence, but she is impulsive, irrational, and has no sense of awareness or common sense whatsoever (as an example — in one scene, she knows someone is trying to kill her, yet after nearly getting run over, she walks into a hotel room without checking it first, immediately pours herself a drink, leaves her firearm in plain sight on the kitchen counter, then blindly pushes open another door, completely unaware that someone is following her). Much of her behavior and actions throughout the story don't align with her job -- in fact, several characters she encounters throughout the story outright question whether she was ever trained because she kept doing stupid things. And that's when she's an adult…as a teenager, she actually does even more ridiculous things, which, of course, is not surprising at that age – what's surprising is why she was chosen to be recruited as a spy in the first place. Of course, this also makes what happens at the end, with her career, entirely unplausible.
As far as Arlette goes, I honestly don't even know where to start. While Josie's story arc was ridiculous but at least somewhat tolerable, Arlette's story arc was absolutely outrageous. Pretty much all Arlette does for most of the story can be summarized as follows: 1) pine for her son, 2) flirt with every guy she encounters, 3) berate herself for being "pathetic" and "ridiculous" because of how easily she falls for men (especially the handsome ones — though it seems that, according to Arlette and Josie, every man they encounter – and there are plenty in this story -- who isn't a Nazi fugitive is "handsome" or "good-looking" in some way). As an example of how outrageous and nonsensical Arlette's story arc got — I ended up skim-skipping most of the sections where Arlette was in French Guiana (which was, oh, like a third of the book) because a lot of it was useless fluff that didn't advance the plot much (except near the end), plus I got tired of reading about Arlette lusting after the bodyguard every couple pages (no exaggeration – there were actually scenes where Arlette spies on the guard taking a shower, or her blouse conveniently flies open in his presence somehow, or she's in a bathrobe when he suddenly enters the room for no reason – not to mention all the gratuitous references to the bodyguard's "beautiful eyes" or hot physique or whatnot) — it basically got into "steamy romance" territory, which to me, made absolutely no sense given what the story was supposed to be about.
Another thing that irked me about this book was that the entire narrative was written in first person, alternating between the "voices" of Josie and Arlette. Normally, this would not be too much of a problem, but when both of the main characters are so unlikeable (and problematically written like they were here), to have to hear the story told from their perspective and be subjected to their every ridiculous, outlandish thought – well, let's just say it made this already tedious and frustrating read even more tortuous. Interestingly enough, the last couple books I read that I didn't like (all new releases) were in the same format – first person point of view narrated by the main protagonist(s). I noticed this format is used a lot with mysteries and thrillers, which I can understand, as the limited perspective could help build up the air of mystery or suspense in the story, but with historical fiction, it seems like it would be less effective…though I guess at the end of the day, doesn't matter too much as long as it's done correctly, which it obviously wasn't in this case, as it made the entire story sound stilted and awkward.
Overall, I was hugely disappointed with this book. It actually had the potential to be a very powerful, emotional story about the Holocaust and its aftermath, while also shedding light on historical atrocities such as the Lebensborn program, the secret experiments at the concentration camps, the underground network that helped the most heinous of Nazi fugitives evade justice after the war, etc. Unfortunately, Kelly took the story in an entirely wrong direction with the contrived plot and the ludicrously nonsensical (not to mention unrealistic) characters. Ironically, the Author's Note at the end of the book actually does a good job of covering the historical details and also provides references for non-fiction books that cover these topics. I mention this because I'm kicking myself now for wasting my time reading 500+ pages of a story that I disliked when I could've just read the Author's Note and found out everything I needed to know (including the basic plot and the ending, which there are major spoilers for in the Author's Note).
To me, this book was a waste of time, but again, as I mentioned earlier, I'm an outlier with this one so don't just take my word for it. If you're on the fence about whether to pick this one up or not (with the page count, it's actually quite a time investment), I would recommend checking out other reviews before deciding.
Received ARC from Ballantine Books via NetGalley.
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