Rating: 
Summary: A stunning narrative of great love found ... and lost
Review: In LOSING JULIA, Patrick Delaney is the 81 year old resident of a nursing home, where every morning is the same ..."Staring at the gaunt silhouette in the mirror, which stares back with imploring eyes, I realize my body has abdicated. The anarchists are on the palace grounds ... I am brought to my swollen knees by a hundred thousand indignities, small slices of the blade that have drained the blood from my face. And I'm so tired." But, Patrick was young once, fighting in Pershing's doughboy army in the Great War along side his friend Daniel. And, amidst the squalor and death of the trenches, Daniel shares with Patrick stories of his beloved back in California ... Julia. And Patrick, in absentia, falls in love with Julia also. "... maybe it was just the expression on Daniel's face when he talked about her, but for me, Julia soon became my own escape from the war; my personal guardian angel who beckoned me away from the madness every time I closed my eyes. Daniel offered hundreds of dots and I connected them, until the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen emerged, my angel in the trenches; my incantation against despair. My Julia." Ten years after the Armistice, in 1928, Patrick returns to France to attend a memorial for his comrades who died twisting in the German barbed wire during an assault on the Hindenberg Line. Unexpectedly, Julia is there, searching through the 152 names engraved on the granite monument, until her fingers stop at ... Daniel's. Partrick approaches, somehow knowing it's Her though they've never before met. ("Julia Julia. What are you doing to me? And what is it about beauty that intimidates; causing us to kneel somewhere deep inside and pray and wonder just how close we might crawl before being banished from the sanctuary?") And Julia. What does she eventually say to Patrick, and to us? "... I think that we all look for clues that we are not utterly alone. Clues we find in literature and paintings and music and even in someone's eyes; clues that demonstrate that someone else has felt the same indescribable feelings, seen the same things or passed by the same spot even if it was by candlelight three hundred years ago. It means everything, like finding footprints in the sand of a deserted island.' Patrick's tragedy is that he came upon Julia's footprints, and then lost them. And the emotional repercussions of that dispossession reverberate down through the decades. LOSING JULIA, by Jonathan Hull, is one of the most eloquent novels I've read in years. Hull's ability to string words together is, at times, exquisite. It's an epic of comradeship in war, a love story, and a chronicle of growing terminally old with the memories of youth still as fresh as if it was only yesterday. (It's also a searing indictment of the way Americans shunt their old people aside to die - but the book won't be remembered for that.) Poignant, powerful, vivid, profoundly bittersweet, an elegant essay on life, love, and the scars of the emotional losses that we carry to our graves. As Patrick puts it: "What then is life but a desperate, hilarious, passionate and finally tragic bid to prove that we are more than hideously sensitive fertilizer? The quest! And so we stumble forth, seeking salvation through love and heroism, the royal roads to the soul. Sancho, my horse!" We all have our Julias, and the reader that would call this novel maudlin simply has not discovered his/hers yet. Give it time.
Rating: 
Summary: Blood and Guts and Romance! What more can you ask for?
Review: Told in Flashback, a WW1 vet tells the story of the friend he lost on the front and the woman that changed his life. A beautifully crafted story with nice historical perspective mixed in. This book rekindled my intrests in WW1. I highly recommend it, and the audio version has an excellent reader!
Rating:
Summary: One of the most moving novels
Review: I picked up this book specifically to read on a flight I took for a recent vacation. The story sounded interesting from reading the back cover, but I never imaginedjust how good this book would be or how much it would touch me to the soul. I could not put it down, and with a 6 mth old in the house, I jumped on every spare minute I had to read more. I was so moved by the story--- it was touching and so realistic. By the end, I was crying.. something I haven't done when reading a novel in a very long time. I am going to recommend this book to everyone I know who believes in love, lost love and the horrors of war. I have been lucky enough not to have experienced any loss due to war, but after reading this novel, I believe I can relate to anyone who has lost a loved one either to war or poor timing.
Rating:
Summary: Five Stars Are Not Enough!
Review: LOSING JULIA is a powerful--powerful!--first novel. In it, author Jonathan Hull combines three separate tales, seamlessly moving among them. Story #1 is the most powerful, a first-hand report of a young soldier sent to the front during World War I. War never can be lyrical, yet Hull manages to share its horrors with a command of language that is masterful, interspersed with quotes from original sources which provide additional appalling details. The author captures the euphoria of the young soldiers evident in all first-hand accounts of the troops going into battle, but he also describes the terror of battle so well that it becomes difficult to continue reading. It almost is beyond comprehension how someone born about 40 years after the events being described, as Hull appears to have been from his jacket photo, could bring these battles to life so effectively. Story #2 is the fast forward, to the young soldier, the rare survivor of those World War I battles, now grown old and living in a nursing home. He has developed into a man of insight and compassion, a thoughtful and decent person. His introspective examination of his life allows the author the chance to make some pithy observations, again crystalline in their quality, about the hardships of old age, especially as to how the elderly are viewed as less than human by many who still are young. The subtext addresses the irony that those who are lucky enough to reach a respectable age are doomed to be old themselves. The third story is the story of lost love, a long and touching examination of whether true love ever actually can be lost, and the impact of such loss on a person's subsequent life. Hull zips among these three plotlines with the skill of a skateboard champion, carrying his readers along on a fast and thrilling ride. This book deserves a Pulitzer Prize; it probably is the best work written on the first World War in the past half-century.
Rating:
Summary: Touched on Many Levels
Review: As the daughter of a WW I veteran, who was in France in 1918; as the survivor of a lost passion, who remained unmarried for over 25 years; and as a just-turned-65-year-old who is contemplating her remaining years - this remarkable book gave me food for thought to last many months to come. Totally believable, it explained things I'd only imagined, painfully aroused long dormant emotions, and identified many of the fears one faces on the brink of "old-age". I don't know where Mr. Hull experienced so many of the horrors of both war and aging, but he shows us that with a lively spirit and a sense of humor, one can overcome even the unthinkable. A book I will read over and over and share with many others.
Rating:
Summary: Losing Julia
Review: What a haunting novel!! I can't seem to forget the characters, Patrick, Julia and Daniel! The story flashes between the past and present with tidbits from real soldiers' writings in between. You can feel the characters and almost think what they are thinking. You can feel the fear, loss, sorrow, anger, love, passion and regret! It has been a long time since a book has made me feel, think and ponder. You will truly love this novel!
Rating:
Summary: TOUCHING,W ARM AND MEMORABLE
Review: I absolutely loved this book from start to finish. My parents, who are now deceased, were both in the armed forces overseas during WWll where they met and fell in love. They often told me true life stories of love and loss during wartime, how love had often endured even the horror of concentration camps. When I saw this book, it reminded me of their stories. Reading the pages of this book are like stepping inside Patrick Delaney's private life and finding yourself suddenly there as the events are happening, feeling all the emotion as the events unfolded - the fear and horror of war,the sadness and loneliness of losing, and most of all, the love and passion for a woman. The author has a unique writing style sprinkled with a touch of humour. The book will give you an understanding of what it is truly like to grow old and physically weak; memories of our younger years are often all we have left. However, inside Patrick's body, there is a mind still filled with life, humour and wisdom. The book has a way of making you step back and taking a look at your own life; it is a reality check of how little time we really have on this Earth, and of how much time and energy we waste on inconsequential matters that at the end of our journey are totally insignificant. It is a story filled with emotion and food for the soul, and with every page you turn, you will be reminded that today's events will one day become the memories that sustain us in our senior years.
Rating:
Summary: Couldn't Put it Down
Review: This book was amazing, I thought especially so considering it was a first novel for this particular author. The character development was deep without losing the reader, his descriptions of events, emotions and people were powerful. The sense of humor interspersed from youth and the terror of trench warfare to the indignities of growing old and nursing home life were touching and sincere. I can't wait to hear more from Mr. Hull.
Rating:
Summary: A wonderfully written book about love and loss
Review: I have read A LOT of books, and this is the only one so far that has brought me to tears. This is an incredibly written story about war, love, and loss. It will keep you reading late into the night.
Rating:
Summary: A Wonder of a Book
Review: "Losing Julia" is a gem. An exquisite piece that gently takes the reader by the hand, down the road of memory, of ageing, and of love. Read this book - it will warm your heart, make you weep, and give you a precious understanding of what it's like to grow old. The customer reviews that compare "Losing Julia" to "All Quiet on the Western Front" and other WWI classics are missing the point - and comparisons are odious at best.
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