What a wonderful piece of historical fiction. Everyone should read this book about Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh's life. He was just too possessive for my liking and Anne lapped it up when he gave her compliments that she was his only co-pilot (literally even though she had her pilots license too). She was a strong woman herself in some ways but catered to him. He always got his way it seems. I guess you can say she was starry eyed.

She never wanted to leave Charles, Jr. especially when they left for 6 months travel when he was 1. Everyone knows the history of the Lindbergh baby, and a tragic one. I wanted to skip over that part since it was hard to read but it's part of reality and I only knew the basics and really never delved into it.

Rich in details but a little too long for my liking. ( )

KIRKUS REVIEWBiographical novel of Anne Morrow and her troubled marriage to pioneering aviator Charles Lindbergh.Anne, self-effacing daughter of a suffragette and an ambassador, is surprised when Charles, already a celebrity thanks to his first trans-Atlantic flight in 1927, asks her¥instead of her blonde, outgoing older sister ElisabethÂ¥to go flying with him. And it is Anne whom Charles will marry. At first, the glamorous couple?s life consists of flights all over the world: Anne becomes a pilot and navigator and Charles? indispensable sidekick. However, when in 1932 the Lindberghs' first child is kidnapped from his nursery, the resulting press furor almost destroys Anne. In addition to her grief over her lost firstborn, a grief that Lindy doesn?t appear to share, Anne suffers the downside of fame as public adulation turns to prurient sensationalism. The couple takes refuge abroad, where they enjoy the orderly routine and docile press of the Hitler regime, as long as Charles is willing to accept a Nazi medal and attend rallies. However, Kristallnacht proves too much even for Lindbergh?s anti-Semitism, and he and Anne return to the States as war threatens. As more children arrive, Anne is beginning to bridle at Charles? domineering ways, however the aspiring author is too insecure to contradict him even as he offends her liberal friends and family by siding with right-wing groups who claim that the Jews are trying to force America into war. At Charles? behest, and against her own principles, she pens The Wave of the Future (1940), an isolationist screed which renders her anathema to the intelligentsia: Even her alma mater, Smith College, disowns her. In 1974, after 47 years of wedlock, Anne must decide whether to finally confront her husband. Although the portrayal of such a passive character could easily turn tepid, Benjamin maintains interest, even suspense, as readers wonder when Anne?s healthy rebellious instincts will burst the bonds of her dutiful deference.A thoughtful examination of the forces which shaped the author of Gift from the Sea.Pub Date: Jan. 15th, 2013ISBN: 978-0-345-52867-4Page count: 416ppPublisher: DelacorteReview Posted Online: Dec. 3rd, 2012

I'm not sure what the author intended when writing this. Were we meant to see Anne Morrow Lindbergh as a sympathetic character or as a privileged, shallow, weak woman? I've never read anything complimentary about Charles Lindbergh and there wasn't anything new here to change my mind. But at the end of this book, I also disliked Anne. ( )

I didn't realize when I first picked up the book that I'd already read something by this author. I listened to [b:The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb|9689093|The Autobiography of Mrs. Tom Thumb|Melanie Benjamin|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1320416504s/9689093.jpg|14577174], which got pretty tedious after awhile. And when I first started reading (actually reading) this book, the Mrs. Tom Thumb narrator's voice was in my head, annoyingly. I could tell for certain they were by the same writer. Fortunately, Mrs. Tom Thumb's voice left my head and I could read this story without the shadow of the other. And since I was in control of the pace of this novel, I could skim when parts got too tedious (too descriptive or meloncholy, for example).

Both novels act as a telling of a famous man's wife's story, someone who is known to history primarily through her husband. Not a bad way to read a history novel, really. But these are both relatively light reads, a bit of back and forth text where most of the story is told when the narrator is in her later years, looking back, giving hints of the tragedies and knowledge that would come as time progressed. Of course with Anne Lindbergh, the reader is likely familiar with some of the bigger tragic events, so those "foreshadows" are not giving much away.

It's historical fiction, light female reading. Not a bad book for a summer's day, though I never really connected with Anne or her husband. Just another observer, peering into their life through an author's imagination.

Very interesting book. Couldn't put it down. ( )