D-Day: The World War II Invasion That Changed History, by Deborah Hopkinson

Hopkinson is a Portland author, someone I've met a few times and who I enjoy talking to about her latest work. At least one of her books has been in OBOB (maybe more), and I was excited to read this newest non-fiction offering from her. The book goes very in-depth of the invasion of Normandy, France in 1944 as part of the United States's efforts to stop Hitler and spread of Nazi Germany as well as the other Axis Powers (Italy and Japan).

D-Day offers a lot of personal stories and voices, which is the strength of the book. For me, to hear a a story of a specific event or time in history told from the people who experienced it is the most powerful way to understand and appreciate what it was like at that moment in time. That is why I like a good historical fiction book - when an author can create characters and events that tell of a true period in history so that I can feel what it was like to be there and why certain things did or didn't happen, that creates a connection for me that is hard to beat! Hopkinson uses a lot of personal stories to describe this historical event and I liked "getting to know" a few of the people she relies on often to tell the story of this WWII invasion.

The book is divided into sections, which I found a little disruptive and broke the flow a bit. I would have also liked more maps so that I could really place the events that her sources were describing more clearly in my mind. She does include a lot of actual photos from the invasion period, which helps deepen my understanding and picture what things looked like then.

My last criticism of this book is that several times Hopkinson slips into a  promotion of the people who served in the war, and in this invasion in particular, which is warranted on the one hand, but she occasionally sounds like an advertisement for the armed forces rather than an author telling a story by laying out the facts and details. I think that World War II may have been the only large-scale war worth fighting in the modern age, due to the terror that Hitler and the Nazis were creating and delivering to the world. But that cause does not make war less terrible, nor does it make those on the right side of the fight all good. She mentions that Blacks were not treated as equals in the armed forces, and that women's roles were limited as well, but that both made important contributions. More of both of these aspects of the story would have helped the story feel more balanced, perhaps. In her warranted appreciation for the sacrifices thousands of people made for this cause, there was an occasional promotion of war in general, I thought, and that bothered me a little bit. I was hoping she offered something more thorough and thoughtful, perhaps, and a little less "hawkish".

In all, I enjoyed this book, and learned a lot about D-Day and this chapter of WWII history. If you are a fan of war history, particularly World War II, you may also find this book really interesting. If your interest is more casual, you may find this book bogs down a bit along the way, as it did for me at times. I don't think this is Hopkinson's best work so far, but it's decent. I'll always look forward to her next offering! 4 paws!