Rating: 
Summary: A totally engrossing story
Review: I also loved this book and I couldn't put it down towards the end.The war descriptions were very moving,especially the part about the prisoners going into "No-mans Land".This book will teach you a lot about World War 1-especially about the effects of it,not only on the soldiers,but on their families also.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful
Review: This was one of the most beautiful and moving books I have ever read. I have avoided literature based around WWI and reading this book certainly raised my general knowledge of the conditions that existed for the soldiers. I certainly had no idea. I'm not sure if this book has been turned into a film but I hope that the French do soon - it would be wonderful I think.
Rating:
Summary: Just another excellent review
Review: All the other reviewers have said it all--this is a good book. I am adding my two cents because I am having such a hard time finding books of this quality to read. Something different, something well written (my interpretation of the translation was that it is Etchevery's style of writing--a little bit Hemingway), something that makes you think. I rely a lot on these reader reviews to help me find those types of books. I hope you find this review helpful.
Rating: 
Summary: An Unusual Love Story
Review: This was a rare, intelligent, beautiful love story . It is particularly deft in its handling of the war scenes. It was the perfect balance between mystery, historic fact and clever story telling.
Rating:
Summary: Engrossing story told from many viewpoints...
Review: This was a very engrossing book whose story is told from many viewpoints. I especially enjoyed the character of Mathilde and her enthusiasm and tenacity to find the "truth". However, I found the translation quite stilted. Having read many translated books and thoroughly enjoying them, this title was quite a chore. I found some of the translated content to be almost elementary in nature. I only wish that I was fluent in French, as I know I would have enjoyed this title immensely. Don't let this stop you, however, from chosing this book, as the story is a good one.
Rating:
Summary: Call in sick! Hide from the kids!
Review: I've just finished reading this book, and I wish it was seventy-five thousand million trillion pages longer. Japrisot's prose is elegant, the plot is riveting, and the protagonist is someone I wish I knew in real life. You will want to read it in one sitting; it's that good. I'm a voracious reader who generally reads 1-3 books each week, and I would rank this one as the best I've read in the last six months (and there have been some contenders, let me tell you.) The translation manages to let the elegance of the writing shine through. I can't say enough good things, so I'll just stop here!
Rating:
Summary: Truly Engrossing!
Review: I read this for a book discussion group about three years ago - I had a month to read it, but devoured it in a matter of three days! (I would have done in one sitting if I were not obliged to go to work.) This is a flawlessly written mystery that captures very eloquently the devastating horrors of war - poetically integrating ironic twists of fate with the tenacity of hope in the human heart. Japrisot has created an absolutely lovable three-dimensional heroine in Mathilde - who the reader can't help but follow across any vast expanse or obstacle - holding on to scarcely even a thread of hope - to find the true fate of her fiancé lost in the "no man's land" of WWI. This is a fine read - but be forewarned - you'll have a very hard time putting this one down!
Rating:
Summary: An almost perfect novel
Review: Although I am not a big fan of war-related novels, this book kept me riveted by its brilliant plot and it's treatment of the realities of the First World War. As a piece of story-telling it is absolutely first-rate and entirely compelling. What stops me from giving it 5 stars is the one-dimensional characterization of Mathilde and her family, and the occasional simplistic descriptions that leaves little room for the reader's imagination. These are very minor complaints in a novel that I would highly recommend to anyone.
Rating:
Summary: Wow... Even on my third read...
Review: I never would have guessed a book like this out of Japrisot after reading his 60s noir stuff -- I read it once when it first came out in English, read it too fast in the way that dogs and children are apt to gobble their food faster than the speed of tasteability, and then (as is the way with most good books) everyone I knew borrowed it and then leant it to their friends, and so on -- 2.5 years went by -- the book wound up in the hands of my friend Ted, one of the ten or twelve inhabitants of the planet who actually have the cojones to return a long-overdue book (I am NOT one of that rare dozen, by the way)mailed it back to me, and I read it twice, and it was even better than I remembered it, especially at Round 3, when I actually chilled out and read it at an excruciating turtlespace... To be able, at the cranky and over-post-post-contemporarized fin de siecle, to write such an overwhelmingly beautiful and downright odd love story without resorting to worn-lace nostalgia or otherwise bowing away from what presently squats before us as the toadlike specter of our world -- that's a feat worth more than ten million silly opinions. My own included.
Rating:
Summary: FIRST CLASS READ
Review: This is a marvelous book. It is a powerful indictment of the hideous way in which WWI was fought. The central event of the story provides us with a clear picture of the inhumane nature of that conflict. The writer weaves an engrossing tale of love, mystery and history. There is however, an air of unreality to the gentle and kind nature of most of the characters that Mathilde comes in contact with. These characters are in stark juxtaposition with the shadowy figures that caused the inhumane sentence to be carried out. The only fault I can find is that the characters could have been more complicated.
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