Y is for Young (A-Z Challenge 2026) 29/4/26

The A-Z home page can be found here.

My theme this year is authors that I've read. More about the books I've read than the authors themselves.

I'm an avid reader. I'm a member of 2 in person reading groups through my local library. I'm gradually working my way through an old BBC reading list of 100 books (I'm about half way through) and I'm taking part in the online 52 Book Club Challenge for the third time this year where the challenge is to read 52 books over the year based on 52 different prompts. You can also find me on Goodreads here

The Y authors I've read are:

• Young Louisa

I was slightly surprised to see I only had one Y author on my list but Louisa Young's "My Dear I wanted to tell you" was definitely a 4 star read for me.  

I read it back in 2019 and my review was, "A very poignant story that details the WW1 experiences of Riley Purefoy and the love of his life, Nadine Waveney.  It's a grim reminder of how awful life was in the trenches and an insight into the terrible injuries soldiers received and how medical advances enabled facial injuries to be repaired."

I can't honestly remember too much about it so I checked out some other reviews on Goodreads which reminded me that it covers the use of postcards sent home by soldiers who had been injured to their loved ones that started with the line "My dear I wanted to tell you" and gave them the options of being very truthful about their circumstances or sending a more edited version to spare feelings.  Postcards being able to be sent quicker than letters which required censorship.  

There is also a lot about the advances in plastic surgery that were necessary due to the awful injuries soldiers sustained.  It's a bit graphic on that front.  

Unfortunately, despite being able to read about the horrors of WW1 and WW2 we still don't seem to have learned any lessons from them.

I swing between watching the news so that I'm informed about what is happening in the world, despite how awful it is, or switching it off and immersing myself in a book.  The books seem to be winning at the moment.