First, let me start by saying that this is not a paid review. I haven’t been compensated, other than a copy of the book, and will not receive any commissions from sales.
Okay, now that the required disclaimer is out of the way, let’s dive in.
Several months ago, I was contacted about reviewing the book, Dear Diane. To be honest, my gut reaction was “no”. I had a lot going on and the past few books I agreed to review had been so bad that the publisher asked me not to write the review. But something made me agree to read it and I’m so glad that I did.
I was originally given a pdf copy of the manuscript to review. I sat down in front of my computer thinking I would read a few pages before bed. A few hours later, I was on the last page of the book. That’s right – I read the entire book in one sitting. With every chapter, I kept thinking just one more and I’ll go to bed. I did that until it was finished.
Dear Diane is a collection of letters that a soldier sent home to his love during the first Gulf War. I felt as if I had found someone’s box of letters in the attic and was reading something that I really shouldn’t be. It almost felt like an invasion of privacy to be privy to these letters.
There were so many times throughout the book that I related to the subject of his letters or even just a particular line of text. I often found myself thinking that I remember getting a letter (or in our case, email) from my husband where he spoke of the same sort of thing.
The only thing that I feel the book is missing is the letters from her. But at the end of the book, you will find out why they aren’t included and it will satisfy your need to see her side of the exchanges of letters during the war.
It was so interesting to me to see how much things have changed just from the first time we were in Iraq to the current war. It really wasn’t all that long ago but there are many changes, especially in terms of communication with our soldiers. But one thing has remained the same and that is the love and worry being sent across the miles that you can easily feel by reading his letters.
Thank you so very much for your blog and the information about Scammers. Although I personally would never send money to anyone I’ve never met in person and only online, I have been involved with 2 scammers and can see how someone could easily fall, especially when they send pictures of children and or pics of actual military activity. Anyway, i thought i was falling for 1 of them but something seems really off. This one hasn’t asked for money yet, but he’s getting really distant and went from calling me his “wife” after a few weeks to hardly any correspondence. I treat it like a game because honestly, the pandemic has me bored. But the lengths of audacious manipulation these scammers go to are incredible. Now I feel really bad for the real soldier he’s impersonating. Yes, i was hoping he was real because this one hasn’t asked for anything but pics of my boobs. The other asked for a calling card that starts at $100. I told him no and he said goodbye. Question, are there any real stories you know of where any real connections happened??? Just curious…
Thank you again…