Michael Grant is a great author. I read the first book in this series, which I did enjoy but not enough to continue with the series. Thank you for the opportunity to read this book.

An ingenious novel packed with fact, fiction and important themes. The three main viewpoint characters are incredibly detailed as is the plot which somehow seems to cover a hell of a lot in a short space of time in an exciting and engaging prose.

ARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

This was a bit of a shot in the dark for me. All too often when an author tries to address questions of gender politics in an alternate historical setting, either the characterisation or the narrative, or even the rest of the historucal accuracy, is affected. No such problems here. Grant's one twist is that women enlisted in the army proper in WWII (from America - it was a bit of a different set up in the UK although royal proclaimation would not allow women in roles where they engaged the enemy with weapons - unlike Russia who sensibly grabbed all the able bodied people they could get regardless of gender) and he pulls it off splendidly.

The book is replete with historical detail and Grant evokes the feel of the time very well indeed. Rio, Frangie and Rainy are great characters, each giving you a different POV on why they enlisted and on different parts of the military - soldier, medic, spy.

Grant does not pull punches when it comes to gore either. It's not gratuitous but it is authentic - being a girl doesn't make you magically blade and bullet proof, something which other (particularly male) authors sometimes fall into the trap of doing.

Altogether this was a very compelling read. I quite liked the rathet bizarre Gone series, but Grant blows his previous works out of the water here in my opinion.

I love micheal grant ive read his other books i pertically loved his gone series. i think hes got an amazing imagination the things this man can twist from his amazing mind into a best seller book is phenominal what an amazing writer i loved this story well done .

Front Lines is Michael Grant’s enthralling re-imagining of World War 2 – if women had been eligible for service in the US army. Even though it features three (kick-ass) female main characters, the story is not gender-specific at all. I’d recommend it to anyone!

Part 1 starts out a little slow, introducing us to the characters and learning how they ended up in the army. The three girls, Rio, Frangie and Rainy, have very different backgrounds and personalities, and their distinctive voices make it easy to tell who’s point of view you are reading from. I found that it sometimes lingered a bit too long on Rio, while I really wanted to know what Frangie or Rainy were up to. For the most part of the book they have three separate storylines and don’t have anything to do with each other. The common thread in the book is that they are all involved in the North African operations that took place during WW2, in one way or another.

Part 2: War. Whereas part 1 had some light-hearted and humorous bits, it gets very grim from here-on. The author has done a lot of research on WW2 and – though I can’t be 100% sure on the historical accuracy – it truly captured the horrors and brutality of the war. At times, the writing made me feel like I was there myself, crouching through the mud or hiding in a foxhole. Also, Front Lines is maybe not a story for the squeamish: it describes some of the wounds in graphic detail and there were occasionally body parts flying around too.

An important theme of this book was prejudice (and injustice). Although women are allowed to enlist in this alternate universe, it is not widely accepted. Rio, Frangie and Rainy all come face to face with various degrees of sexism, ranging from demeaning remarks to (attempted) assault. I liked that they were all such strong characters and how they handled their situations. In addition to this, Frangie, an African American girl, and Rainy, a Jewish girl, also suffer from racial and religious prejudice. Particularly Frangie has so much to endure, it really broke my heart at times. It’s sad that, even when serving on the same side, people of colour were still segregated and forced to serve in separate units. As a medic in training, Frangie was one of the only ones that wasn’t separated. She was treated horribly by most of the white soldiers, some even refusing treatment from her, though they would die without. The racial slur she got was very uncomfortable to read, but unfortunately an accurate representation of women of colour in that era. It still made me so angry.

The ending was quite abrupt, I wish that had been done differently. I feel so invested in both the main- and the side-characters and I’m really looking forward to read more about them in the sequel – Silver Stars – which is out on January 31st 2017!