Books, Fiction

Forging Friendships in The Rose Code by Kate Quinn

Reading The Rose Code by Kate Quinn in my friend’s rose bush. | Dress | Watch |

Worth A Read Yes
Length 621
Quick Review Three young women from drastically different backgrounds converge on Bletchley Park in 1940 and meet the consequences head on in the days leading up to Princess Elizabeth’s wedding in 1947. 

Kate Quinn does an exceptional job at creating three complex and intriguing women in her heroines: Osla, Mab, and Beth. The Rose Code is lovely historical fiction featuring fictionalized versions of real people and composites of real people. Full of friendship, intrigue, loyalty, war, love, and searching for meaning, Quinn creates the captivating world of 1940’s Bletchley Park, England to dive into. 

When there is more than one protagonist, I find myself identifying with one over the others and dredging through the others’ narratives until it finally comes back round to the one I like best. Quinn focuses on three women from drastically different backgrounds with an amazing ability to make them all equally likeable, disagreeable, moving, and interesting. I enjoyed each one’s narrative, and found myself rooting for all of them to “win”. Osla is a smart debutante from high society. Mab is a tall working girl from London. Beth is a good Christian daughter. They all struggle with the role society has dictated for them in the midst of being a woman during war time. 

Women were an integral part of the war effort in every country and culture. From the U.S. to Britain to Algeria to Russia to Japan, women played key roles. These women were forced back into their boxes after the war without a thank you or much acknowledgement for their commitment, secrecy, and love of country. Quinn challenges the idea that men were the only ones to fight in the war and earn wounds. Women may not have fought on the front lines [depends on the country and how much you dig into history], but they were an integral part of the fight. Britain’s intelligence would have collapsed without women’s efforts; “Bletchley Park and it’s outstations had four women to every man…” The Rose Code does not just stop at the role they played at the time; Quinne discusses at length, throughout the entirety of the novel, the erasure of women from history and common knowledge. She tackles it head on particularly in the segment 

“Where were all those women now? How many men who had fought in the war now sat reading their morning newspapers without realizing the woman sitting across from them at the breakfast table had fought, too? Maybe the ladies of BP hadn’t faced bullets or bombs, but they’d fought—oh, yes, they’d fought. And now they were dismissed as housewives, schoolteachers, silly debs and they just bit their tongues and hid their wounds.”

Osla, Mab, and Beth may be the focus of the novel, but they represent the countless women in Britain, Europe, and around the world who put their lives on hold and at risk to fight for their countries in the only way they were allowed. Without reward, thanks, or even recognition, these women worked tirelessly. 

The Rose Code by Kate Quinn

Quinn attempts to tackle the inequality of history in a variety of ways. Though her historical novel is hefty, there’s not enough room to adequately deconstruct all the inequities women and people of color faced. Racial inequality and racism are put under scrutiny through the book club’s reading of Gone with the Wind and the Egyptian-Maltese-Arab character of Harry Zarb. A look into the dark space that is an asylum. Beth is committed. Rather than being mentally unstable, she has knowledge. Throughout history, when a woman was difficult, intelligent, or an heiress, they were locked away in asylums, drugged into a state of mental decay. Quinn also explores the way these imprisoned women were exploited sexually. I’m glad she doesn’t leave these issues out of the novel, but they could have been explored deeper and more meaningfully. 

I love Osla, Mab, and Beth. I see myself in each one of them for different reasons. Osla is judged solely on her appearance. Mab had to work hard for everything she has. I identified most completely with Beth: the good, Christian daughter, who stands up for herself against her domineering mother after being told she is dim the entirety of her life as her doormat of a father stood by. This bit lit me up inside: 

“I’m your father. I have the right—” 
“No, you don’t.” Beth looked him in the eye. “You didn’t stop her throwing me out. You never defended me. You never told me I was clever, even though I can do the Sunday crossword ten times faster than you. You never told me I was anything.”

It is the story of so many women and girls. It’s the story of my own adolescence told in a tiny nutshell. 

The Rose Code is Quinn’s way of critiquing modern society through the use of historical fiction. The world has come a long way since war time 1940s, but in so many ways, it hasn’t progressed all that much. We still hold the same work done by men on a pedestal while reducing women’s to nothing more than “fluff”, “If you were a man and you wrote funny pieces about daily life, they called it satire. If you were a woman and you wrote funny pieces about daily life, they called it fluff.” On the surface it may seem like a social critique of the past, but the society and standards Osla, Mab, and Beth live in are still far too au courant. 

Memorable Quotes
“It sounded very poetic: “What lies at the center of a rose?” but it wasn’t the poetry that entranced Beth, or the scent. It was the pattern.”
“The men shifted at the word brassiere, and Osla nearly rolled her eyes. Point out a security leak and they shrugged; mention a woman’s underclothes and everyone got in a wax.”
“How much she hated being a woman sometimes: forever underpaid and underestimated and betrayed by your own body.”

bisous und обьятий,
RaeAnna

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Title: The Rose Code
Author: Kate Quinn
Publisher: WilliamMorrow
Copyright: 2021
ISBN: 9780062943477

Books, NonFiction

Escape from Paris by Stephen Harding

Worth A Read Yes
Length 288
Quick Review Joe, an American soldier, and Yvette, a young French woman in the resistance, fall in love at Les Invalides under the most unusual circumstances during World War II.

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In front of The Water Wall in Houston, Texas. | Escape from Paris by Stephen Harding | Dress | Purse | Shoes | Earrings |

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Escape from Paris | Dress | Shoes | Purse |

Available October 8, 2019

The world has an obsession with World War II. It was a new kind of war revolutionizing economies and industries around the world. The devastation and impact it had is still remarkable. With so many history books, novels, documentaries, TV shows, movies, and more, it can be easy to forget the individuals impacted by each decision, battle, success, and failure. People won the war. People lost the war. People lived lives during the war. Stephen Harding puts faces to these stories in Escape From Paris

Harding focuses on the 94th Bomb Group, a United States Air Force unit based in England flying missions over Germany and France. 

I’m going to be completely biased, I found the French part of this story far more interesting than the American aspect. This has nothing to do with the writing and everything to do with my personal interests. As a francophile and history buff, I am drawn to the French bits. 

Joe is an American, who enlisted in the Air Force when the war began. His bomber went down over Northern France during an air raid along with several other planes. Most did not survive, but Joe and several other did. Finding the resistance they ended up in Paris at Les Invalides. 

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Georges and Denise had been the caretakers of Les Invalides for many years when the war broke out. They joined the resistance along with their daughter, Yvette. There were resistance groups working separately and together throughout Europe. This family was in a unique situation as “the “caretakers of Invalides” literally carried the keys to what was arguably one of the safest hiding places in the country” because Les Invalides had been taken over by the Germans during the Occupation, which, counterintuitively, gave this family more freedom to aide the resistance effort while housing and hiding soldiers. It was a dangerous and brilliant plan due to the fact  “the Germans never thought to search what they assumed was a completely secure facility.”

There’s a love story in Escape from Paris, but I find it the least interesting bit about this book because personal taste. I did find it a little redundant because Harding felt the need to continually point out that this is a love story and that it’s not just about war, it’s about love too. I get it. He’s building up the human aspect of the story, but it’s not that interesting. The repetition borders on frustrating. The humanity is abundantly clear in his portraits of the people inhabiting this story. They lived lives before, during, and after the war. These were people who loved each other and their country. They fought in any way they could to protect what they believed in. The love story is sweet, but it’s the least impactful part of the story. If it wasn’t in the title, I probably would have forgotten it was in the book. Joe, Denise, Georges, and Yvette were incredible and brave people standing up for what they believed in.  

Escape from Paris is riddled with historical facts, airplane terminology, logistics, and more. If you’re not familiar with these terms and this kind of history book, you’ll want Google handy. I enjoyed reading this interesting and well researched book. It’s definitely one to read if you like WWII.  

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Title: Escape From Paris; A True Story of Love and Resistance in Wartime France
Author: Stephen Harding
Publisher: De Capo Press (Hachette Book Group)
Copyright: 2019
ISBN: 9780306922169