A family epic laced with authenticity, wit and unforgettable characters. Liz O’Reilly has a husband in Vietnam, 4 kids under the age of 12 (and one on the way), and a burgeoning crush on the family priest. An unconventional love story. It’s Summer 1967 and Mike O’Reilly’s just shipped out to Vietnam. Liz O’Reilly is trying to keep it all together for their four kids – 6 year old Deb–Deb (who … (who believes she is an otter), 8 year old Angus, Kathie, (who at age 9 helps to integrate the local Blue Bird troop with her best friend Temperance), and 11 year old Danny – the spitting image of Mike. While Mike is off fighting “his” war, Liz struggles with her own desires and yearnings – to pick up the theatre career she abandoned when Danny was born, to care for the four children she loves fiercely yet also occasionally resents, to leave the backdoor unlocked so she always has an escape route. While set during the conflict in Vietnam, Farrington’s novel captures the other side of any war – that of the war at home and the careening emotions of the spouses and families left behind.
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I rarely give a book 5 stars but this is one of the best books I read last year. Of course, as an army brat and a child of the time period, I could totally relate to the family depicted in the book. The husband and father, a Marine officer serving in Viet Nam is a wonderful decent man and the descriptions of his life in the war are vivid and …
poignant yet humorous
I felt as though I were there with Mike during his deployments. And Lizzie is a woman secure in her own self. The Vietnam war impacted so many families. This book made it come to life for those of us who weren’t there. And the boys were something else. So adult in their actions, yet so young. I was so glad the book ended on a positive note.
I laughed but I mostly cried. Characters all so realistic/ human. War is hell for all. This is first novel I’ve read about the Vietnam war. Reading from the perspective of both the wife and her Marine spouse made this novel seem so real and I do question how much worse was everything.
I enjoyed reading this book because of the time setting and retelling of events during the Viet Nam War. It was a sad and difficult time when young men were sent off to War to fight for their country. Although Communism was the enemy, it was difficult to make an enemy of the Vietnamese, at least that was the sentiment back home. Back home a young …
Rarely is a book written regarding the upheaval of life of a soldier’s wife. Maintaining a household was not the norm for women during the Vietnam era, even though women were beginning to break the rules. The dreaded double Marine knock on the door, delivering the unspeakable. The conceptual religion bringing no peace. The book gives the reader a …
well written
Life is always hard on the lives of the families of the soldiers of war. Inherently, war is death.
Realistic story of a woman who holds down the fort and then some while husband is away at a war he wanted to be a part of.
Very well written.
I loved learning about the Vietnam War from a whole different perspective including the family left at home.
I really liked this book. The characters were all realistic and likeable. I think it’s probably an authentic epresentation of what our military dealt with and those they left behind.
very moving story of the Vietnam years.
It takes you back to the 60s and the challenges people faced, the backstory of the soldiers who fought in Vietnam and the families they left behind. WE forget about the wives who stay behind and singlehandedly manage children which might be as difficult as fighting the war
I loved this Lizzy’s War and would like to read a trilogy by the same author. The main characters are Lizzy, a homemaker looking forward to her fourth child to enter school, and Mike, her husband, a Marine, who leaves for Vietnam at the beginning of the book. It is 1967, and he leaves for the war right after she finds out that she is pregnant …