Scan barcode
eleanor_gravestock's review against another edition
informative
medium-paced
3.5
Informative, but did talk about others as opposed to Vera Atkinson and the narrator relied on the reader remembering a lot of information from info dumps earlier in the book.
cdcsmith's review
3.0
This should have been much better than it was. Writing was pretty dry given the subject matter was so intense.
minervajane81's review
2.0
While Vera Atkins was interesting to read about, I couldn’t keep reading the book. I skimmed the second half of book. The author brought up a lot of topics without giving much background and didn’t connect them. Too much ramblings.
ssejig's review
3.0
At 25, Vera Atkins became the spymistress of Great Britain. Her role in uncovering information against the Axis powers helped the Allies win the war; though her role wasn't revealed until many years later.
This book seems to have been heavily researched. You can tell because it is so thickly littered with names that it is had to keep everyone straight. I've read a number of books on World War II and still had issues trying to understand just who was who. People are plunked down in the middle of the story and it's assumed that you will know who they are. Now, it is possible that every single one of those people is included in the cheat sheet at the front of the book but there weren't that many pages and who wants to keep flipping back and forth every time there's a new name?
This book seems to have been heavily researched. You can tell because it is so thickly littered with names that it is had to keep everyone straight. I've read a number of books on World War II and still had issues trying to understand just who was who. People are plunked down in the middle of the story and it's assumed that you will know who they are. Now, it is possible that every single one of those people is included in the cheat sheet at the front of the book but there weren't that many pages and who wants to keep flipping back and forth every time there's a new name?
nicoleme1212's review
1.0
For a biography that should have been riveting, good GOD was it impossible to read. It is dry at best and completely without substance at worst. It appears as if the author wanted to cram as much information into each sentence as possible-including everything completely irrelevant.
I'm honestly just disappointed that such an interesting topic was butchered like this.
I'm honestly just disappointed that such an interesting topic was butchered like this.
kikiandarrowsfishshelf's review
3.0
Warning, only read this book if you have good working background knowledge of WW II and a knowledge of the SOE.
Stevenson's book about Vera Atkins is not the best book about Atkins. Check out [b:A Life In Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Missing Agents of WWII|570911|A Life In Secrets Vera Atkins and the Missing Agents of WWII|Sarah Helm|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175887172s/570911.jpg|557949], which was the first book I read about Atkins and started me on my WW II reading kick.
Stevenson jumps around; he jumps around too much and the book is not linear. He also is vague in places and seems not to have anything but a sense of worship for his subject. Atkins always feels like she is in the background, not the foreground. At times she seems over romanticized
I did learns some things, though. I did, however, find it interesting that Stevenson left out the fact that some of the female SOE members who were killed were raped first, at least as far as Atkins was able to determine.
Stevenson's book about Vera Atkins is not the best book about Atkins. Check out [b:A Life In Secrets: Vera Atkins and the Missing Agents of WWII|570911|A Life In Secrets Vera Atkins and the Missing Agents of WWII|Sarah Helm|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1175887172s/570911.jpg|557949], which was the first book I read about Atkins and started me on my WW II reading kick.
Stevenson jumps around; he jumps around too much and the book is not linear. He also is vague in places and seems not to have anything but a sense of worship for his subject. Atkins always feels like she is in the background, not the foreground. At times she seems over romanticized
I did learns some things, though. I did, however, find it interesting that Stevenson left out the fact that some of the female SOE members who were killed were raped first, at least as far as Atkins was able to determine.
briarfairchild's review
3.0
This was an excellent and interesting read. It's rather hard to know exactly how accurate a lot of it is since there are many incidents described by the author which he fails to give a reference for. Many of the other references are for conversations he had with people, often many years later, which again is shaky when it comes to proof. Of course, the kind of activities described in this book *are* hard to verify and we shouldn't automatically assume that it's all a bunch of lies. The other problem I had is that the author jumps about in time and space quite a lot and it was often hard to tell when and even where a particular incident was taking place, which was frustrating. Still, a very enjoyable read as long as you're prepared to take it with a pinch of salt!
jasper's review
4.0
Vera Atkins herself was amazing. Every part of the book that quoted her or showed her doing anything at all made me so excited. The book in general seemed a bit scattered, though, and it tended to go off on tangents about different people without explaining clearly how they were related to her life. I had hoped it would be more about her story and less about her spy network. (Don't get me wrong -- the other spies were cool, too -- I just wanted to see more of Vera.) Still, even with the tangents, it's worth reading to get to know the incomparable Miss Atkins.
shawnnaw's review
2.0
Hard to follow when listening to the audiobook. Too many facts without a lot of filler made it difficult to keep track of who was who. Kind of dry.
More...