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That doesn’t happen so much anymore. I’m not sure whether it’s because, as I got older, I learned the habit of reading “critically” and how to pick out literary devices and how they worked, which meant that I could now try to outsmart the writers, or because, as Daniel Pinkwater once said, books for kids are meant to be entertaining, while books for adults are meant to calm them down before they go to sleep. (If that’s the case, it’s tremendously unfair.) Maybe the other problem about books for adults is that many authors seem to feel they have to choose between being entertaining and being serious and literary.
Simply described, The Daughters of Mars is an old-fashioned war story of the sort that has fueled thousands of books and movies, from All Quiet on the Western Front to Saving Private Ryan. It follows a small group of characters with different backgrounds and temperaments who find themselves working together through several years of war. As time rolls on, some leave, new ones are introduced, and not everyone survives.
(Oh, and by the way, if you are the sort of reader who, like me, sometimes can’t help flipping ahead to read the last page, Keneally is on to you. I’ve read reviews that complain about the last chapter, but I like to think it was written the way that it was because Keneally hasn’t forgotten what it’s like to be a reader.)
