'The girl from station X' is actually written by the main character's daughter, Elisa Segrave, and thus to be considered as non fiction or historical rather than a memoir.
It's actually two stories in one book: the story of the estranged relationship between mother and daughter and their lives, as well as the narrations of the mother's life as a young girl and young mother.
I started reading this book some months ago, and it took some time to finish. Partly, because at some moments I disliked the main character that much, that I didn't wanna go on reading, an secondly, because I had a heavy workload with the training and portfolio report to write for my new job.
So I finally read the last pages today and I am happy to finally publish a new personal book review thus.
As mentioned above, the book is about the life of the mother Anne as Elisa had known her all her life: a distant, alcoholic mother often absent, but especially about the life of a young woman in WWII, which Elisa discovers when finding and reading Anne's multiple diaries, after the mother moved to a nursing home.
The major part of this book, which fits the title 'my mothers unknown life', is unfortunately the part which often gave me have uncomfortable feelings about this woman Anne.
The way Anne described her time during WWI, sometimes rose my anger because of the nonchalance she described some horrific WWII facts, Anne taking her privileges for granted and not realising what the people really had to go through.
Though she sees destruction, death and misery, she clearly has no clue what these WWII years signify for the majority of people living in the affected areas. Anne's life in early years, though marked by tragedies too, is mainly lined by traveling, her job at WAAF, secret love affairs and yet more traveling.
Later on, once married, Anne moves to Spain, and while the country lives in the dictatorship of Franco, Anne goes ahead living her nonchalant life of hers in high society. The children taken care of by nannies and other duties being taken in charge by different servants. Anne as a mother is emotionally distant, unstable, alcoholic, and very often absent for longer periods of time.
My rating nevertheless is quite positive with 4,0 out of 5,0 as the stories told were both very interesting, though there were several things I did not appreciate and some behaviour I do not apprehend.
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