Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Best of 2024 ezine!

Book Summary and Reviews of I Love a Man in Uniform by Lily Burana

I Love a Man in Uniform by Lily Burana

I Love a Man in Uniform

A Memoir of Love, War, and Other Battles

by Lily Burana

  • Critics' Consensus (0):
  • Published:
  • Apr 2009, 368 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

A former stripper with a penchant for fishnets and anarchist politics, Lily's lacerating wit and rebellious past never would have suggested a marriage into the military. But then she met Major Mike, a Military Intelligence officer and professor at West Point, and fell hopelessly in love, resulting in a most unorthodox fairytale romance -- poignant, sometimes painful, and utterly unpredictable.

After Lily and Mike tied the knot, life as an Army wife proved to be a rough adjustment for authority-averse Lily. When Mike was deployed in the War on Terror, Lily was suddenly left to endure his absence alone, with no friends, no support system, and no knowledge of the vast and confusing military world into which she had married.

Upon Mike's return from the war, the couple moved to historic West Point. With the support of the other military wives, Lily worked through the daily struggle to find her way and came to know and love a group of unlikely friends. Together, Mike and Lily suffered through the nightmare of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, while Lily suffered bouts of depression that nearly ended their marriage. Through it all, Lily struggled with her preconceptions about the military and coped with being married to a good soldier fighting a brutal war.

From harrowing emotion to the dishy details of being an Army wife, Lily Burana bares her heart and soul as a modern military spouse. I Love a Man in Uniform is a profoundly moving story of how a woman can locate, and heal, her true self.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"One of those rare memoirs that both teach and make us laugh." - Kirkus Reviews.

"The War on Terror, post-traumatic stress disorder, and depression all rear their ugly heads in a work that will no doubt attract other military wives and husbands." - Library Journal.

"Lily Burana is as American as apple pie, dazzling as a Fourth of July firecracker, and smarter than a lash from a Senate Majority whip. Equal parts Cultural Studies professor and bombshell geek, she teases words into impossibly satisfying configurations. Her sparkling prose is like brain tonic served in a coconut shell - it's packaged so whimsically we forget we're being schooled." - Diablo Cody, screen writer of Juno.

This information about I Love a Man in Uniform 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.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Lily Burana

Lily Burana is the author of the acclaimed Strip City and the novel Try. Her writing about the domestic side of military affiars has been published in the New York Times Op-Ed pages and Slate. Other features and criticism have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, GQ, Glamour, Self, The New York Observer, The Village Voice, Slate, Entertainment Weekly, Salon, and many other publications. She has been a contributing editor at New York Magazine and SPIN.

More Author Information

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more biography/memoir...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern
    The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern
    by Lynda Cohen Loigman
    Lynda Cohen Loigman's delightful novel The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern opens in 1987. The titular ...
  • Book Jacket: Small Rain
    Small Rain
    by Garth Greenwell
    At the beginning of Garth Greenwell's novel Small Rain, the protagonist, an unnamed poet in his ...
  • Book Jacket: Daughters of Shandong
    Daughters of Shandong
    by Eve J. Chung
    Daughters of Shandong is the debut novel of Eve J. Chung, a human rights lawyer living in New York. ...
  • Book Jacket: The Women
    The Women
    by Kristin Hannah
    Kristin Hannah's latest historical epic, The Women, is a story of how a war shaped a generation ...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
In Our Midst
by Nancy Jensen
In Our Midst follows a German immigrant family’s fight for freedom after their internment post–Pearl Harbor.
Who Said...

A library is a temple unabridged with priceless treasure...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Enter Now

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.