The Chilbury Ladies' Choir - Jennifer Ryan (2017)

I'll preface this review with the admission that I'm not exactly a fan of this very specific sub-genre of historical fiction that this book belongs to, which I like to call "World War II was really hard on women". I very much like World War II stories since I find the era and the history fascinating, but if I'd have to choose I'd much prefer to read about the soldiers fighting the actual wars, and not one of the millions of books about how the people (that is, women) left behind are faring, at least one of which seems to be released every week. And look, I don't want to downplay the experiences of real people. Obviously WWII was horrible for everyone involved, no matter where they were at the time, or what they were doing. But what started out as a well intentioned effort to tell the tales of these "unsung heroes", as women of this era are usually seen, has turned into an incredibly overdone and played out topic, in my opinion. Just look at Goodreads' own WWII page to see what I mean. There's really not much else to tell here and now the only time I mark one of these books as Want to Read is if there's a really unexpected hook in the synopsis, like an unusual location, or an exciting-sounding mystery. So for this reason I don't think Chilbury would have caught my eye had I encountered it now, but it's been on my Kindle for years from back when I was a lot less selective, and it so happened that I was really bored of my reading choices towards the end of last year and decided to let a random number generator decide what I'm going to read next. And when it fell to this book, I was happy to dive in, thinking, what the hell, it's an incredibly popular and well rated book, I'll probably just simply enjoy it.

Well... I didn't. I found it predictable, not very well written, with one-dimensional and frequently annoying characters. For starters, it's written in an epistolary style, with diary entries and letters telling the story, which I usually love, but here it was entirely pointless, and simply just badly done. I was expecting varied perspectives and unreliable narrators, which is the main advantage of a narrative written like this, if done well. So when in her very first chapter Kitty described her older sister Venetia as vile, wanton, terrible, etc, I immediately chalked it up to sibling rivalry and teenage jealousy, and was eagerly waiting for Venetia's chapters to provide the alternate view and a peek at her hidden depths. But there were none. She is exactly the way her sister described, as so is every other character. Of course, the book then tries to convince you that she is slowly changing thanks to her experiences during the war, but the only reason we know this if because she tells us so. She never fails to inform us that she's a changed woman, a "new Venetia", and the primary reason for that change is not even the war itself, but her (particularly badly done) romance with a man neither she nor the audience know anything about, because one of the book's many smaller plots rely on him being secretive.

This telling-not-showing is rampant in other parts of the book as well, mainly when it comes to the titular choir. Ostensibly it's a vehicle to bring all these women together, make them put aside their differences and forge a new community in the face of the hardships they face. That's what you expect from a book like this, and that's what you're told during every one of their rehearsals and performances. There are many, and I mean MANY, descriptions of the Power of Music and how it makes us stronger and brings us together and all that... but then the rehearsal is over and the women go back to bickering and backstabbing each other. Except of course in the very end, when everything is wrapped up nicely and they all look forward to their bright future as a community, which doesn't feel earned in the slightest. Not to mention the fact that the last chapter of the book takes place on September 6th, 1940, and features several of the main characters moving to London, which honestly made me concerned because how is this supposed to be a happy, hopeful ending, when, well...

 

Did the author think of this? I have to believe she did because since then she has written several other books in this exact genre, at least one of which takes place in London during the Blitz. I admit that when I started the book I flipped to the end to see the closing date, expecting it to last until the end of the war, and was surprised and concerned when it didn't, but this way it's even worse. It very much reminds me of the last episode of The Other Two, when aspiring actor Cary finally gets his big break in a major Hollywood production, and is excited to start shooting next week... only for then to reveal that the episode takes place just before all movie productions are about to shut down because of Covid. It was a very fitting and hilarious ending to a season of this dark, satirical comedy, and now I got this exact feeling now when finishing Chilbury. Somehow I doubt this was the effect the author was hoping for.

I could talk about some of the other issues I had, which mainly concern the characters... like how I was supposed to buy Kitty's utter stupidity as simple teenage naiveté, or the entire existence of Miss Paltry, with her often hinted at, mysterious past, which came to absolutely nothing, or the almost comically terrible Brigadier, or Venetia's unseen friend Angela who was supposedly in love with the man her friend kept playing with and I was waiting for her to finally get her own voice just to tell her to fuck off and never contact her again, but that also never happened. In fact, the only main character I found tolerable was Miss Tilling, which was helped by the fact that from the very beginning I imagined her with the looks and voice of Olivia Colman... but even her transformation from meek and timid do-gooder to village badass seemed rushed and mostly unbelievable.

All in all, this book was a big disappointment. I have another one from this genre on my To Read list, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, to which I've seen this book compared, only that one is supposed to be much better, but I don't know. It'll probably be a while before I pick one like this up again.