A big thank-you to NetGalley, the author, and publisher for giving me a copy of this book for an unbiased review.

2/5 - It was okay.

I am in the clear minority of people who aren't raving about this book and to be honest, I can understand why. The story of Ethel Mulvany absolutely is fascinating and is an uncommon one - I for one have never read an account of a female prisoner in the Pacific theater. Ethel's legacy is an important one and I am glad that it is memorialized in this book. The account also deals with complex topics such as PTSD and mental illness, especially in relation to how these two can be aggravated by war. Ethel's character is complex and the author does not shy away from the darker aspects of her heroine's history - including her prejudice towards the Japanese and her sometimes difficult demeanor.

The reason I rated this book as only 2 stars is because I had a hard time connecting to the story and staying engaged. This could be because I listened to the audiobook. While the narrator had great diction and a fantastic use of different voices / accents, I felt that I could easily lose track of her general narration. As a result, I had to listen to certain sections over and over again to get a better understanding of events and ended up drawing out the listening experience over a long period of time. The narrative felt at times repetitive, at other times overly descriptive. I was curious about Ethel's human side - I was interested in her relationships with her husband and her friends more so than just her accomplishments. It was difficult for me to get the entire picture of who Ethel was, but again, this could be due to the format.

As such, I think this is an important book and I am very glad to have listened to it, but as I rate books based on my enjoyment of them I can only give this two stars.

A Taste of Longing is a heartbreaking read with plenty of footnotes to inform the reader further. It invites the reader to feel astonishment, sadness, anger, and, gratitude that World War 2 is in the past.

Ethel’s story is a story of strength in spite of mental illness and harrowing prisoner of war conditions. We learn about her life before and after the war as well as in internment during the war. She is quite the character, battling unspeakable horrors and her mental illness to help those around her survive.

The recipes included were interesting, I’ve never taken interest in wartime cooking before but these recipes sparked my interest.

The narrator has an interesting and appealing voice and I enjoyed her narration of Ethel’s words.

I would definitely recommend a listen.

My thanks to NetGalley, publisher and author for the opportunity to review A Taste of Longing.

This isn’t an easy book to listen to; and nor should it be because it recounts numerous atrocities suffered by those interred by the Japanese occupying forces after the fall of Singapore.

The cover portrait is striking in its simplicity. The narration throughout is excellent. Well paced and even; there’s more than enough drama in the account and it’s very well portrayed. The story of the fate of these women is reflected in the main by Nevil Shute in A Town Like Alice and the Tenno books. Both are fiction, based on fact; this is hard fact and the indignities suffered are heart breaking. It’s not a book to enjoy, as such, because some of the detail is harrowing. But it’s also a story of resilience, hope and the supremacy of the human spirit. These women were not broken, but grew in strength and I found the account engaging throughout.

My thanks to the publisher for a review copy via Netgalley.

This was a great book because it was the real-life story of Ethel, I don't usually like rating books when it's a biography but I'm going to highlight what I love about her story.

Definitely what she went through was terrible, I really can't understand how humans can be so evil and callose, they torture her so much till the point she lost her mind, I can't imagine the Karma these people will get, no one has the right to do what they did to Ethel. it was so inhumane but still, she was always very strong no matter how much these people were trying to destroy her.

the more that I read about WWll the more I found how many countries were terrible we started with the nazis, then with the red army now I found also the Japanese were soulless and terrible too so in fewer words during WWll was hard to really find someone who was kind most of the people even the alias were raping many women and treating them like discarded trash.

Ethel deserved a much better ending, she really didn't deserve all the evilness, hopefully, her soul is now resting from all this madness.

the Narrations by Gwenlyn Cumyn was great I really love how she brought the story to life and give it so much depth.

this was a very hard book to listen to because of what Ethel went through but I'm glad that I got to learn from her, she deserves recognition and resolution. thank you Ethel for your legacy you deserve so much more.