When We Had Wings - Ariel Lawhon, Kristina McMorris, & Susan Meissner - ★★★.¾

AUTHOR: Ariel Lawhon, Kristina McMorris, and Susan Meissner

GENRE: Historical Fiction

PUBLICATION DATE: October 18, 2022

RATING: 3.75 stars.

In a Nutshell: A WWII historical fiction focussing on three nurses stationed in the Philippines. Based on the ‘Angels of Bataan’. Okay character development but good variety of perspectives. Steady plot development, but too complicated at times. Fair representation of the experience of nurses during war-time. Great use of the location. Too much telling. Despite the shortcomings, I found this better than Kristin Hannah’s ‘The Women’. Recommended.

Plot Preview:

1941. Manila, Philippines. Eleanor Lindstrom (23, US navy nurse), Penny Franklin (26, US Army nurse), and Lita Capel (22, Filipina nurse) forge a friendship when they first meet at the Army Navy Club in Manila. Each has their secret reasons for enlisting with the military, but as the Philippines is just a stopover point and the war is mainly in Europe, they don’t think they will have trouble. Things change when Japan attacks Pearl Harbor. Now the US military and the Japanese Imperial Army both aim to control the Philippine islands for their strategic location in the Pacific, and the nurses find themselves facing active war conditions. Due to their different nationalities and military roles, each experiences a different struggle. But each also hopes to make it through the dark days alive, hoping to see her friends again.

The story comes to us in the third-person perspective of the three nurses, spanning from 1941 till a little beyond the war.

The first book you think of when you see ‘American nurses during a war’ is the popular ‘The Women’ by Kristin Hannah. I know this is a beloved title with many readers, but to me, it misrepresented several things. I was a bit apprehensive of trying another book aiming to portray what nurses went through during a war. But given that this was published two years prior to Hannah’s book, the three co-authors are established historical fiction writers, and the story was inspired by the experiences of the ‘Angels of Bataan’, I had a feeling this would go better for me. I was right. On many factors, this novel is what I wanted ‘The Women’ to be.

It intrigues me that three established historical fiction writers came together to write this novel. I couldn’t really tell where one author stopped writing and the other took over; the flow felt quite seamless. Then again, I am not aware of the writing styles of these authors. I have read only one novel by Kristina McMorris ('The Ways We Hide'), and none by Ariel Lawhon and Susan Meissner. Perhaps those who are more familiar with their writing might be able to deduce the transitions better.

Bookish Yays:

👩🏻‍⚕️ The genuine portrayal of nurses and nursing during combat conditions. Way better, more comprehensive, and more accurate than what was in ‘The Women’! The difficulties of practising medicine and offering healing in other ways during an active war come out well.

👩🏻‍⚕️ Lita’s being of mixed heritage (half American, half Filipino.) Gives us a local voice and also an insight into how those of mixed-race were seen by locals and Westerners.

👩🏻‍⚕️ The use of Manila as a setting. I love that the book shows the country in a genuine way instead of only looking at its problems. The beauty of the location is also genuinely described. Any criticism is aimed only at perpetrators instead of stereotypical nonsense like blaming the poverty or the monsoon.

👩🏻‍⚕️ The depiction of WWII from a non-white location. So many people don’t even realise that both the WWs went far beyond Europe and USA, thanks to the colonial rulers who pulled Africa and Asia into a war that wasn’t even theirs.

Bookish Okays:

🏥 The plot structuring. I like that the action begins almost right away instead of starting with an extensive sob story about the three nurses’ earlier life. We get their backstory bit by bit and only to the extent required. However, the shift between the three nurses’ POVs is too frequent.

🏥 The character development of the three nurses. It helps that they have diverse personalities and backgrounds, so we see them grow in various ways during the course of the story and we also get to see the events of the war from multiple angles. But there is no individuality to their voices, and two of their war-time experiences (those of Eleanor and Penny) are similar, making it tough to remember their individual arcs..

🏥 The brutalities of war. Mentioned extensively but never sensationalised. This creates a strange dichotomy while reading: we can see the intensity of the events but cannot feel them due to the toned-down writing.

🏥 The romance tracks. It is customary to include romances in almost every story these days, so I was relieved to see that the love tracks for all three nurses never get a priority over the war experiences. However, one of the stories has an abrupt enemies-to-lovers track, and another has an out-of-the-blue HEA. Then again, there are no illogical character resurrections in this book, which is a plus. (Those who’ve read ‘The Women’ know what I am talking about.)

🏥 The historical details about the strategic significance of the Philippines, the political repercussions of its participation, and the consequences of the clash between the Americans and the Japanese Imperial Army. I learnt so many facts! However, at times, because of the constant trivia, the writing goes too much into telling. It is tough to keep track of the individual arcs when we are learning so many things about multiple unfamiliar locations at once.

Bookish Nays:

💉 The combination of army and navy nurses for the storyline sounded intriguing to me, but I honestly didn’t see any difference between their experiences. The difference in service background felt just like a token mention.

💉 The friendship across the three characters isn't developed well. Though they keep referring to each other as best friends and each constantly has the other two in their minds, we don’t get to see how exactly their bond developed. Even the start of the friendship is almost instantaneous without any clue of the reason.

Overall, I am not sure if I liked this book better because it was a good book or simply because it avoided many of the mistakes committed by ‘The Women’. Unlike the popular title,

👉🏻 This actually contains multiple women’s perspectives;

👉🏻 None of the women is from a highly privileged background;

👉🏻 It includes a local perspective as well;

👉🏻 It respects the Asian setting instead of treating it like a clichéd backward location;

👉🏻 It never offers higher priority to the romantic developments;

👉🏻 None of the characters randomly return from death;

👉🏻 The nurses do far more than conduct tracheostomies; and

👉🏻 It is never a one-nurse show as all the nurses (the three main characters and the supporting characters) are shown handling their medical duties.

The only point on which ‘The Women’ scores better is in its depiction of PTSD, which this novel merely mentions in brief.

I think the main reason this book didn’t get the same level of acclaim is that it is set during WWII, a time period that is done to death in historical fiction. Plus, there have already been other novels on the Angels of Bataan. But if you enjoyed ‘The Women’, you must try this book as well.

Recommended to historical fiction fans. Though this story is set in the same old WWII, the setting and the nurses’ POV make it different.

My thanks to Harper Muse for providing the DRC of “When We Had Wings” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.