Blue Stars

I love getting ARCs through Net Galley and have been working to get more of them read.  Blue Stars by Emily Gray Tedrowe is set to be published in February (according to Amazon), but I have already had the pleasure of reading this novel.

Ellen is a professor whose legal ward Michael has enlisted and subsequently been shipped to Iraq.  This is her first experience with the military.

Lacey has married into the military. Her husband Eddie has rescued her from life as a single mom, but Lacey still remains a girl who loves to have fun, a bit of a wild child.

The stories of these two women intersect when they find themselves at Walter Reed Medical Center after Mike and Eddie have been injured.  These two women spend considerable time dealing with the red tape of the military, trying to advocate for the men they love.  Their living conditions are less than ideal (a note at the book's end explains how this portion of the story was based on an article written in 2007 detailing the less than ideal way military families are treated when they must take up residence at Walter Reed while their loved ones get rehabilitated).

This novel grew up on me as I read. The brief blurb I had seen about Blue Stars left me unprepared for two narrators, and I spent a lot of time at the beginning trying to determine how Lacey and Ellen's stories connected.

However, I really did enjoy Blue Stars.  Lacey and Ellen's characters are so different yet they do find some common ground as they are both thrust into advocating for their loved ones.  And, even though I didn't necessarily agree with all of their decisions, Tedrowe's development of them allowed them to seem real, as multi-faceted as real people.

Blue Stars was a great selection to choose as I looked through the large number of ARCs I have waiting from NetGalley.  I am looking forward to hearing what others have to say about this novel after it is released.