OK, just two more about women in WWII | The Women of the Post | Joshunda Sanders | The Nightingale | Kristin Hannah

Have I reached the limit of reading books about women in WWII? Maybe, or so I thought after reading The Nightingale. It was good, although I think The Women, Kristin Hannah's latest, is better in terms of story and characters. So I don't have a lot to say about it, other than that it's a good read, if not similar to other books of its type, and it's actually pretty long. The Women of the Post, however, was really interesting for focusing on Black women during WWII, a serious under-represented group in the genre. The story, like many, is based on real circumstances and real people. During WWII, Black women had very few options to support themselves and their families. The first character you meet here is Judy from The Bronx, who is sick and tired of hanging out at the Bronx Slave Market (yes, it was really called that) to pick up a few cents or a dollar a day for often back-breaking domestic work. She's recruited to join the newly-formed WAC by a young Black woman who is eventually promoted to Major, the highest ranking Black woman in the WAC. The character development here is fairly thin as it follows Judy and her besties Stacy, Bernadette and Mary Alyce through basic training and their eventual post in England. Their task is to sort through millions of pieces of mail to and from military personnel that had to be processed and reviewed for sensitive content. Their motto: "No Mail. No Morale." We've read about Black servicemen who were serious slighted by, well, everyone inside and out of the military system, and Black servicewomen had it at least that bad, if not worse. Sanders is a competent writer (and a former member of the Obama Administration) and tells a compelling Hidden Figures-type story. I'm always interested in reading fact-based stories about the significant and unrecognized role of women in the war.