This book is about the summer of 69. It was a summer of change - Woodstock happened on this date (today is August 15, 2019) fifty years ago. An American crew went to the moon and Neil Armstrong walked on it. Ted Kennedy did what he did/didn't (Chapaquidick) and the Manson Family visited their horror on the nation.

The book incorporates some of this very well into the family developments that occurred when a beloved son was sent to Vietnam. I had a brother in Vietnam that year so I could readily identify with the feelings of the youngest daughter, writing to her beloved brother.

The glaring error that was made was in the fact that the son (Tiger) in the book went into the military and was sent right away to Vietnam. This is not how it happened. Anyone in the military goes through basic training and then an assignment (typically) before being deployed. My brother was in the Army for more than a year when he was sent to Vietnam. He was there when his eldest child was born.

That said, I think, even though she was born that year, the author captures a lot of the feeling of the time and does it very well. I enjoyed reading, although I felt like the ball was dropped with developing the characters to an ending. Lately, books I read have rushed endings and this was no exception. The ending didn't really make a lot of sense.

I think there was another way to go, but it wasn't me writing the book, was it.

I enjoyed reading and I feel like this author has a great book inside her. I haven't read all her work, just this and one other that I can't recall the title of. She's a good storyteller and gets the reader to care about her characters enough to continue.

I read to the end and I enjoyed revisiting that time in history. Rock on Woodstock, even without the music. I'm glad I was alive to know it all happened.

I enjoyed the book. It could have been better, but having lived through this time as a child, I enjoyed revisiting and remembering more than I thought I would.

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Created Aug 15, 2019 at 12:21pm • Submit your own review...