Smashbomb

"The nonfictional account of Mary McCarthy's idyllic childhood, cut short by the death of her parents. McCarthy was orphaned by the influenza epidemic that followed WWI; both of her parents died in a flash. She was then raised by her grandparents in Seattle. The wonderful thing she does in the book is to tell what happened, and then to write about what might have happened. It takes 'memoir' to a whole other level. It gives you a shot of adrenaline; it makes you ask yourself, 'What was the transformational moment in my life when my story really begins?'"

Source

Kudos

6529: German Soldier on the Western Front 1914-1918

Robert Kirchubel

(0 Ratings) Rate It

Book

WWI came to be known as the 'War to End All Wars', though alas this didn't turn out to be true....

tarabu42 (7 KP) rated The Transatlantic Conspiracy in Books

Nov 2, 2017

The Transatlantic Conspiracy

G.D. Falksen | 2017 | Mystery, Young Adult (YA)

7.0

(1 Ratings)

Book Rating

Well-paced, good dialogue, some fluttery heartbeats but no trifling romance (0 more)

It's a Falksen book, so you know someone's going to die and it might be someone you like. (0 more)

Exciting, fast-paced, no fluff

Classic conflicts of child/parent, friend/(boy)friend, working/privileged classes, come to a head with a brutal murder, pre-WWI industrial espionage, and a race to survive the crossing.

The publisher classes it as YA, but it is suitable for a well-read late middle grader as the murder is neither gory nor superfluous to the plot. The language is clear and direct, the dialogue natural, and the settings imaginative.

Kudos

Erika (17789 KP) rated The Missing Matisse: A Memoir in Books

Mar 26, 2020

The Missing Matisse: A Memoir

Pierre Henri Matisse | 2016 | Art, Photography & Fashion, Biography

1.0

(1 Ratings)

Book Rating

I've been trying to finish this book for months. Today, I realized that I didn't actually care what happened, so I stopped reading.
It started slow, then got slightly more interesting once WWI started. HOWEVER, I picked up this book because I thought it was going to be more about the artists at the time.
The description of the book is very misleading, if you want to read a mildly interesting memoir about a kid who participated in the French Resistance and was "related" to Matisse. Honestly, bringing up the uncertainty of who this dude's biological father was a side note and didn't make sense.

Kudos

Birdsong

Sebastian Faulks

8.0 (1 Ratings) Rate It

Book

WWI Centenary Edition. With a new introduction from the author. A novel of overwhelming emotional...

Daniel Boyd (1066 KP) rated Battlefield 1 in Video Games

Jul 27, 2017

Graphics (2 more)

WWI setting

Character stories

Through the mud and the blood

Disclaimer: I am not an online gamer, so when I play through Battlefield or COD, I am simply reviewing the campaign.
Battlefield 1 is set during the first world war, which isn't a setting that we have seen much before in video games. The campaign is broke up into several different soldier's stories and each of them is engaging and entertaining in their own right. The weapons and mechanics are fun to experiment with as well, even if some liberties are taken with the level of weaponry available at the time. If you like FPS games and are looking for an alternative to futuristic sci fi shooters, then this is one for you.