Lovely War

Lovely War by Julie Berry

The premise of this book was so weird, I had to read it. 

The opening scene: December 1942, a beautiful hotel lobby…in walks two Greek Gods, Aphrodite and Apollo.  (Yep, you read that right.) The two have arrived to kindle their affair, but are soon joined by Aphrodite’s angry husband, Hephaestus.  After some arguing and finger pointing, Aphrodite laments that neither her husband nor her lover understand what true love really is. As the Goddess of love, she gets to create it and witness it in others, but she will never enjoy it for herself.  They disagree with her, so in order to convince them, she regales them with 2 stories of true love, set in WWI.

Lovely War is a beautiful story of love.  The stories take place in WWI, but the book is set in WWII with Greek Gods narrating the story.  If I hadn’t heard a book blogger praising this book, I don’t think I would have picked it up.  In truth, the beautiful cover would have caught my eye, but I fear that would have been the end.

The book was enjoyable on many, many levels.  The WWI story lines include love, racism, lost love, heart break, war and more.  The scenes with the gods offer a bit of comic relief in the midst of all that, and oddly, it doesn’t feel as “out there” as you might think.

I encourage you to look past the weird plot line, and pick it up… because Berry pulls it off!