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Book Summary and Reviews of Dream When You're Feeling Blue by Elizabeth Berg

Dream When You're Feeling Blue by Elizabeth Berg

Dream When You're Feeling Blue

A Novel

by Elizabeth Berg

  • Critics' Consensus (1):
  • Readers' Rating (2):
  • Published:
  • May 2007, 288 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

As the novel opens, Kitty and Louise Heaney say good-bye to their boyfriends Julian and Michael, who are going to fight overseas. On the domestic front, meat is rationed, children participate in metal drives, and Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Miller play songs that offer hope and lift spirits. And now the Heaney sisters sit at their kitchen table every evening to write letters–Louise to her fiancé, Kitty to the man she wishes fervently would propose, and Tish to an ever-changing group of men she meets at USO dances. In the letters the sisters send and receive are intimate glimpses of life both on the battlefront and at home. For Kitty, a confident, headstrong young woman, the departure of her boyfriend and the lessons she learns about love, resilience, and war will bring a surprise and a secret, and will lead her to a radical action for those she loves.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"Berg captures changing attitudes toward working women and single mothers in this sentimental celebration of a bygone era." - PW.

"Although a final plot twist may not be fully credible, it does little to detract from this affectionate tribute to the patriotic 1940s and the women of the Greatest Generation." - Booklist.

This information about Dream When You're Feeling Blue was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

tad123

Confused
As much as I enjoyed this book, the lack of explanation as to how Louise ended up marrying Hank, left me feeling that somehow I missed something. I’m hoping that this ending is explained somewhere, somehow by someone??

Nana Hunter

Family Situations in History
I enjoyed this book very much. My parents were in exactly this situation, and I wish so badly I could ask them about what was going on for them and their families at this time. I hope E. B. had actual documents at hand to write background information for this book. I am going to ask my mother-in-law , who is 90, how it was for her and her friends at that time. I think this book can be valuable for what was happening on the home front for the "greatest generation. In many places it was very lyrical.

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Author Information

Elizabeth Berg Author Biography

Photo © 2003 Joyce Ravid

Elizabeth Berg is the author of many bestselling novels, including Open House (an Oprah's Book Club selection), Talk Before Sleep, and The Year of Pleasures, as well as the short story collection The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted. Durable Goods and Joy School were selected as ALA Best Books of the Year. She adapted The Pull of the Moon into a play that enjoyed sold-out performances in Chicago and Indianapolis. Berg's work has been translated into twenty-seven languages, and three of her novels have been turned into television movies. She is the founder of Writing Matters, a quality reading series dedicated to serving author, audience, and community. She teaches one-day writing workshops and is a popular speaker at venues around the country. Some of her most popular Facebook ...

... Full Biography
Author Interview
Link to Elizabeth Berg's Website

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