Front Lines by Michael Grant is based on the idea of what the second world war would have been like if women were allowed to be conscripted into and fight in the US army.
The story is told from the perspectives of three women, who each have very different experiences of the war. However, rather than be conscripted, each woman chooses to join.
There is Rio, the seventeen year old who signs up to prove something after her sister, Rachel, is killed. (Also because her best friend Jenou is desperate to get away from home.) Then there’s Frangie, who is black, and signs up to earn enough money to keep her family off the streets and in the hope being an army medic could help her become a doctor in the future. Finally there’s Rainy, who, being Jewish, has a personal score to settle with Hitler and becomes part of the intelligence.
All three face prejudice and discrimination for being women, as others still don’t accept them as part of the army. Frangie has it even harder being a black woman.
I thought the whole concept behind Front Lines was brilliant. It makes you reflect on how women are still treated unfairly within society today. As many of the words and phrases said to the characters sound very similar to phrases women hear in everyday life.
Following each character made the battles seem suddenly very personal, as you didn’t see the bigger picture but only what each individual soldier had to go through.
The timeline within the book is quite long, which also allows you to see how each person changes because of their experiences. The characters are completely different but linked in many ways, which makes each of the different story lines really interesting and gripping. Front Lines shows how women can be just as strong as men, even if that can sometimes be in other ways.
The story is narrated by another woman in a military hospital, assumedly after the war, who constantly addresses the reader as “gentle reader”. I think this really summed up how we don’t, and cannot really, understand what fighting in the second world war would have been like and how it changes someone.
Overall I would rate Front Lines 9/10 and I cannot wait for the sequel!
- Buy this book at the Guardian Bookshop
