The rating is more like a 3.5. I'm really unsure how I feel about this book. At times I loved it and couldn't put it down. Other times I hated it and couldn't pick it up. There was a lot of repetition in this book, which sometimes I just found confusing. Near the beginning it seemed like there was a lot of back and forth between years with her dying earlier in life. Sometimes it was hard for me to remember who was alive and what exactly was happening in the story. There was quite a few characters and it just became difficult to remember a specific person. On the upside of this though I really did enjoy reading about WWII from a few different perspective. I thought the detail was very rich and especially when she was volunteering in London to help clean up bombed areas. Although it was a bit disturbing I have never read about this in a book before so it offered a fresh perspective on what those at home were doing during the war. I wouldn't vote this book as best Historical Fiction of 2013, although the author is a great writer, the plot just wasn't strong enough.