Pretty Much True...

Submitted by Fran McGraw on February 19, 2013 - 11:23

Book Information:
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Cover:

Author's Summary

"I smell yoru shirt sometimes, but not foten," Mia writes, those slurred keyboard strokes the only connection to her deployed boyfriend, whom she sees everywhere and nowhere in their small military town. A former English professor, Mia passes the time working as a cab driver, mulling over the intricacies of her encounters with others who are affected by the war: her dramatic future mother in-law, who eats bad news for breakfast; a charismatic alcoholic who may have been a medic in Vietnam; a pragmatic but secretive longtime Army wife; and a soldier who found a way to stay home. Pretty Much True... is the war story that's seldom told-the loss and love in every hour of deployment, and a painfully intimate portrait of lives spent waiting in the spaces between.

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MWSA Review

An interesting novel about Mia’s feelings and painful struggles when her lover, Jake, goes off to war. She waits to hear from him yet isn't home when he finally calls. She is angered when she finds out he writes his mother first. Mia has a few friends whom she turns to for company. Resorting to drinking more than she should, the reader can’t help but sympathize with her loneliness. She’s afraid she will lose Jake. Her frustrations and bad decisions and insecurities are compelling. But Mia is not the only one searching to fill her lonely hours. Her best friend begins an affair. Then her husband dies.

More than ever Mia struggles to find the meaning of love during war. She has to deal with some pretty serious relationship issues, and in the midst of all her contemplations, she begins to worry that a life with a young, handsome pilot, a career military man, may only be defined through his.

Pretty Much True… is a timeless story that is faced again and again by every generation that must deal with war and personal identity. Where have all the flowers gone?

Reviewed by: Fran McGraw (2013)

Author(s) Mentioned: 
Tsetsi, Kristen
Reviewer: 
McGraw, Fran
Work Type: 
Book Reviews
Tags: 
Historical
Fiction