This is a very dark read based on a true story
There are a lot of characters and this can become confusing
This is a very educational read

Five Wives is a captivating book. I really enjoyed the switch between two timelines as I read this book. The places and time it all began and the time and places where it wound up, many years later. I wasn't sure I was going to like it, (but I did love The Poisonwood Bible), so I had to give this a read. I have a definite...abhorrence for Christian missionaries and their interference in native populations the world over, I still found this story to be absolutely captivating.

This was not my usual read - so please take my review with a pinch of salt.
Overall I did enjoy the story, the pace was slower than I was usually used to so I did have to push through at certain moments.
Being a firm agnostic I found I was unable to connect to a lot of the plot. This was eased by the author semingly to have written the book without an agenda or alliance to a 'side'.

It took me a while to start, but once I did, I enjoyed well enough. Good characters and interesting.

Evangelical Christianity always makes me feel weird, and so I went into this book with preconceived notions. Well, I wasn't a fan of how the missionaries viewed and treated the "savage" tribe in Ecuador. I think this book is a great example of the dark side of evangelicalism -- and that not everyone who doesn't subscribe to your belief system wants or needs to be saved. You are able to empathize with these women, however, who were abandoned in a completely foreign place after their husbands are killed. The fact that this is based on a true story makes it all the more interesting, and I had to go read more about it. Overall, I think this book would be enjoyable for anyone, regardless of religious background.

It wasn't for me. The topic is good and the writing is OK. It just wouldn't grab me. I tried twice. That said, some reviewers really liked it so give it a chsnce.

Based on a true story, this attempts to tell a complex tale of of group of American missionaries as they try to force their religion on the indigenous Auca people of Ecuador. Colonialism at its worst, and for me this mix of fiction and fact did not work.

The book closely documents the story of all five men and their families before and after the Operation Auca. Now, it does seem like a good idea to write a story about a real life incident but the book fails on several counts for me:

👎 Ambiguous character building when there are a plethora of characters in the story and it can get utterly confusing for readers to follow.
👎 The narrative is simple to the extent it becomes drab and readers might lose interest. I had to leave the book for a few days and then pick up again.
👎 The storytelling did not impress me at all. It was an effort on my part to be engaged with the book. It took me more than a month to finish the book.
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I definitely appreciate the efforts of the author in doing an extensive research and bringing this incident to light through a book. I was intrigued to know more about the entire operation.
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The book could have been a great read for me, considering the incident it was based on, had it been written a little differently. Though the book was not to my liking but I recommend reading it if you are even slightly aware of Operation Auca and would like to read a well-researched account of it through a novel.

I received a copy of the book from Netgalley to review. Thank you for the opportunity.
A intriguing idea being this story but sadly it failed to deliver. The writing is OK but I found the action and drama forced and laboured without realism.
An OK read.

This book was based on a real life situation that developed in Ecuador in 1956 when a small group of evangelical Christian missionaries travelled into the rainforest in order to bring their beliefs to a tribe called the Waorani. I am probably coming at this novelisation of these events from a heavily biased place, because I was once taken from the Roman Catholic Church I was used to in order for our family to join an evangelical Christian group. I left as soon as I was old enough. I also had lots of ethical questions about interfering with remote tribes in this way, not just in terms of forcing our beliefs on them, but simply from connecting them to an outside world they didn’t choose to belong to. So I was interested, but ready to be furious with the missionaries. However, after dropping gifts from an aircraft for several days, they descended into the rainforest. The men entered a zone close to the tribe and were killed, leaving the women to fend for themselves.

This is where the book really takes off for me and I loved reading about how these five characters coped and interacted with each other. It was also interesting to see how or if they reconciled what happened with their faith. I was expecting a bias in the narrative voice but cleverly Thomas actually leaves it neutral. There is no judgement, the characters are presented as they are and it’s up to us to decide how we feel about them and their mission. This allows us to see that several groups have an ‘interest’ in this area, it’s up to us to decide whether any of them have this tribes interests at heart. The local priest has been there longer and has less fervour in the evangelical aspects of his mission. Being there longer can mean collusion with other interested parties though. I have seen the fervour of evangelicals who truly believe their mission comes to them direct from God. I was interested in how Betty White could assimilate her husband’s death into her faith, by framing his death as a willingness to be sacrificed to bring this message to the tribe. By dying for his religious purpose his message becomes more powerful.

I loved how Thomas split the book into the aftermath of the men’s deaths and then a more present day timeline where the descendants of these men look back over the events from today’s perspective. Abby is a fictional character in the present day, situated as a granddaughter of one of the involved families. She is the vehicle through which Thomas can analyse the difference between the 1950s and now, she carries out research on the tribe to see how they are now and go through any information available on how this peaceful mission became an ambush and slaughter. She has to reconcile her grandparents intention with her current feelings, and evaluate her feelings on a religion where her own father is now a pastor. It’s a difficult conflict to reconcile with and I really identified with that struggle. This was a truly interesting and complex novel that I enjoyed, but also truly left me thinking and questioning.

This is a true story which needed to be told. A tale of a group of young American missionaries on a conquest to bring religion to the indigenous Auca people of Ecuador, which ends in tragedy in more ways than the obvious. I enjoyed learning about these events, though the characters were difficult to comprehend and the fictional story that was weaved around the factual one did not really work for me.

The writing in this novel was beautiful. The characters were so well-developed. I found myself going back to read through certain passages again, the eloquence of the writing really hooked me.

This book is well written and has good character development I just couldn’t personally get into the story and found it a little bit of a struggle to keep reading. Either way it just left a little lacking for me personally. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

I was eager to read this because I'd heard this same (real-life) story before from a very different perspective, with no mention of oil or other special interests in the region. While I know this is a fictionalization, I still appreciated the very real context the author brought to the story about a group of U.S. missionaries to Ecuador in the 1950s who decided to attempt to convert a remote native tribe to Christianity. I found the narcissism on full display in several of the male missionaries to be both fascinating and painful to read, and the relationship dynamics between the missionaries themselves, and then between the missionaries and the Waorani people, to be wonderfully done. My favorite parts took place prior to the relocation to Ecuador, when Jim Elliott was first meeting Nate Saint and his girlfriend at home in Seattle.

This novel is based on true events that took place in Ecuador in the mid-1950s, involving five American missionaries’ families with young children. The mission was to share their faith through Operation Auca with the Auca natives. Understanding the Auca culture was not a small feat. I found it amazing the many sacrifices made and the courage these families had to live in the jungle. Life in the jungle is well described. The trials and tribulations in learning new languages and communicating with the people of Ecuador and the natives were quite interesting. The reader knows early on the outcome of the mission where five young men who on a “fateful day in early 1956 … knew the terms of their mission.” This mission ended up impacting families, especially nine small children and their mothers, for the rest of their lives.

I struggled to keep the missionary couples straight at the beginning of the book. It is a multi-generational book which added more challenges for me in keeping the characters straight. Therefore, I wish it had a Character List to reference and ended up making my own which did improve the readability for me. This is the primary reason I didn’t give it five stars. I am grateful for the map that was included. It helped me understand terminology that was for locations. In the Author’s Note, the reader learns the book is based on actual events, but the characters are a blend of fictional and actual people. Hence, this book’s genre is Historical Fiction.

The book shares the events that led up to the decision for the mission to occur in the 1950s as well as more current times with the missionaries’ progeny. Time tends to bounce between past and the more current. If you enjoy Historical Fiction and want something different, this may be a book you’d want to pick up. Be sure to make a Character List. 😊 “… it’s a really dark story. Although I guess that depends on when you think it starts and when you think it ends.”

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher, Harper Avenue, for an Advanced Reader Copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

This is a tale of missionaries going into the wilds of Ecuador to convert a native tribe that has a long history of killing anyone that comes into their territory. Lots of characters to keep up with, which initially deterred me some from diving right in .It was a slow burn. About 50% of the way through it all started working and I sped up to see what the details were and how it got there. I didn't even realize that it was based on true events. I found the book interesting, and enjoyed it very much once I really understood and kept up with the characters. Not a light read, but enjoyable.

I love Barbara Kingsolver's writing and ‘The poisonwood bible’ is an all-time favourite of mine. I was lured into Five Wives, by Joan Thomas by the comparison to Barbara Kingsolver. I am pleased that I was lured in although this book was not quite up to my high expectations. The story of Operation Acua is fiction based on real life events - about a group of evangelical missionaries who attempt to go into the deep jungles of Ecuador to convert the Waornari, a primitive tribe that has never had contact with the outside world. The fictional part was the bit that I struggled with. However, I am so glad that I read it. I looked up the story as I was so intrigued and could not believe that this was a true event. Descriptions of the Ecuador rainforest life was beautifully described. The time scales of 1950’s and present day was somewhat a less enjoyable part of the storyline for me. Thoroughly thought provoking about the role of religion and cultures. Altogether a great read.
With grateful thanks to netgalley for an early copy in return for an honest review.

Five Wives’ is about the wives of five evangelical Christian missionaries from the USA who tried to make contact with an isolated tribe in Ecuador in 1956 (Operation Auca).

Armed with their sincere belief in God’s love, the missionaries make appalling mistakes in all innocence, some of which only come to light in the richness of time. Operation Auca casts a long shadow and it’s a story about three generations: a mixture of fact and speculation round the central story of the original five families and the second generation of ‘cousins’, coming up to date by telling the fictional story of modern-day characters (I wish the end note explaining this had been at the front of the novel!).

I thought the author maintained an excellent balance between respecting the faith of the missionary families and showing the impact such beliefs can have on formerly isolated communities.

In particular, I loved the section with the ‘Life’ magazine photographer Cornell Capa. It set me googling for the 1956 article and there it is: the original story with photos of the wives, holding their children and waiting for their worst fears to be confirmed, and then “The wives carry on, trusting that Aucas will still be saved”. Whatever your religious beliefs, or none, you cannot help but be moved.

And let’s not forget ‘the sixth wife’: Rachel Saint, sister of one of the evangelists. While perhaps the most proselytizing, and therefore least attractive, of the characters, her refusal, as a spinster, to become an unpaid servant to the five fertile families wins our admiration.

Like many readers, I would have appreciated a dramatis personae and some dates in the chapter headings.

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book, which I am now heartily recommending to all my fellow book groupies.

Whew! Five Wives is based on real events that occurred in the late 1950s, and this is one heck of a tale. Five families are evangelical missionaries in South America. The women and children are left to deal with the aftermath of their husbands' deaths. The setting is full of atmosphere and emotion. Lots of compelling events and characters.

The comparison's to Barbara Kingsolver's writing is what lured me into Five Wives, by Joan Thomas. Her writing is gorgeous, let's start there. So the story is fiction based on real life events - about a group of evangelical missionaries who attempt to go into the deep jungles of Ecuador to convert the Waornari, a primitive tribe that has never had contact with the outside world. A group of five men and their families settle at the edge of a rainforest, where living is rough and they often live in fear of being attacked by the tribe, but nonetheless they build homes and manage to raise families. Then one fateful day the five men rush into Operation Acua and into the jungle to try to talk to the tribes- and they never come out. Their families are left alone and for me, that's when the story picks up. It's what happens in the aftermath, what the women do to survive, try to carry on their mission and how they interact with each other. The story bounces between the 1950's and modern day, where some of the Operation Acua offspring are part of a documentary about the incident and the controversial decisions the women left behind made in the wake of their husband's violent deaths. I'll be honest, there are a lot of characters to keep track of, and at time I couldn't remember which wife was married to which missionary, which kids belonged to what families...and it could be confusing. A couple times I almost gave up because I was so tired of trying to keep the characters straight (Covid brain no doubt played a part) but I'm glad I kept with it. The book really picks up a the end with the Operation Acua "kids" discover some of the stories they never knew about those years living at the jungle's edge. It definitely inspires me to look up some of the real life evangelical incidents to read up on. Overall, beautiful language and character development - hopefully you fellow readers can keep it all straight a little better than I did. :-)