Review: Nothing says more than a love letter
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 19, 2012
I love to read letters. I love to write them, and I love to receive them. I really think letter writing is an almost forgotten art form. With too many people used to jotting down abbreviated emails and texts, phone calls and short posts on message boards, the art of saying something with pen to paper is underappreciated by many, but I love that very idea of having a tangible piece of the meaningful or the mundane, words in your hand, forever. Even when things seem left unsaid, they are still there in a letter, somewhere between the lines. And nothing says more than a love letter.There is a lot of emotion in this kindle single. As the author relates to the reader diary entries and letters exchanged between his parents during 1940-1945, I felt that emotion of young love between Robert and Winifred. There was much love and affection there. You can see so much in a person's words. When a diary and a letter become almost confessional, you see the dreams and those hopeful expectations, despite the dread and worry of wartime. I have to say while reading this, when Winnie writes this to Robert, "I'm praying for you, loving you with all my heart and soul. Nothing will happen to you. It mustn't for our lives are just beginning," I had goosebumps because we, as the reader, know exactly how this will turn out for these two, making her words all the more poignant and bittersweet.I think we all know some or even a lot of this history, the facts and the dates, and the eventual outcome definitely. You can easily google or wiki something, check out a book, look up an article, but what this single does is to put a personal connection to that history and to that war, taking it from being only a date, place and event and turning it into something more real and personal, and touching. With the love letters, we see two star-crossed lovers find love and lose love. And added to these personal glimpses into Robert and Winnie, we have the author's own frank admissions and some painful self-reflection, all concerning his struggle to identify with the father he barely knew.The ending of this single really got to me. I even cried while reading it; it was that sad to me, just really touching to see the author come to terms with the loss of his father, what that meant to his family, and how that had affected him and his own personal story in the years since. And as this single ended, I was left with the feeling that this was the author's own love letter to himself and to the boy he was; to the father he had lost; and to the mother whose own bravery was just as commendable.All My Love, Samples Later: My Mother, My Father, and Our Family That Almost Was. A Story of Life and War. (Kindle Single)is full of emotion from love and regret to anger and acceptance. A lovely and poignant read.