Presenting Elizabeth’s Mini Library: Lovely War by Julie Berry. Reviewed by Libby Goby for In the Stacks.

Hello again! Today I am talking about Lovely War by Julie Berry. Told through the narrations of the Greek Gods, readers are introduced to Hazel and James. Their story is being told by the Greek Goddess Aphrodite as a way to explain what her job looks like and how love works to the other Greek Gods Hephaestus, Hades, and Ares. Hazel and James meet by chance right before he is going to report for basic training and go overseas to France to fight in The Great War. Though their time together is short, they feel strongly connected and begin to write to each other after James leaves. Hazel volunteers to provide entertainment for troops by playing piano for them at the YMCA and meets Colette, whose life has been destroyed by the war and left her with nothing. Colette has found her way to the YMCA and works there to help the soldiers. They meet Aubrey, an African American jazz pianist who is part of a group of soldiers who have been given away to France to fight for them. Their narratives weave together, a story of love and loss, of prejudice and cruelty, of twisted ironies and fate. The book is told from the point of view of various narrators, Aphrodite, Hades, Apollo, and Ares