The Rose Code

I'm going to DNF. I am so sorry. The jumping around is too much. I can't focus and its just too long.

I was so surprised with how much I loved this. I don't usually read historical fiction, but this really drew me in. And I loved the characters. They're all so real and fleshed out. And even the side characters are so well done.

I cried at the end. Not because the book is sad, but because I was sad to leave this story.

Enjoyed the three different female protagonists and their bond. I laughed, I cried, and I was inspired. Based on several real-life cryptographers and women, it was fun to reminisce on a previous trip to Bletchley Park and London. Really felt like this book was made for me so if you don't have the personal connection to Bletchley Park, you probably won't care as much about it; however, it's a nice expansion upon the context and surrounding characters of the Imitation Game. Somehow didn't predict the twist at the end, but felt like I should have.

4.5 stars. Fabulous! A bit slow to start but after the halfway point I couldn't put it down. Amazing writing, and character development so strong I missed them at the end.

• I listen to this book, as was read by Saskia Maarleveld, who manages to make a move instead of a simple book in your mind.
  
  The first few chapters needed more of my focus to understand them and place them in the correct order. However, after that it had a really interesting plot and kept my attention constantly. Not as magnificent as the Diamond eye and the Alice Network but it gives you a different way to view history as we know it today.

This is a historical fiction novel and follows the lives of 3 female protagonists, Osla, Mab and Beth through their time working at Bletchley Park in the Second World War where codebreakers worked in utmost secret decrypting messages in order to facilitate war planning.

Some of the characters were based on real life persons and the research that went into these people as well as many of the events in the book was done meticulously and I felt with great justice.

I loved that I felt connected with the 3 main female characters straight away. I also loved the characters of Harry Zarb and Francis Gray who later appear in the book. I thought Kate Quinn's character development was fantastic.

This is by far one of the best books I have ever read and would recommend it to anyone.

3.5

I've always found Bletchley Park fascinating, though to be honest I don't know that much about it.

The story bounces between following three women's lives and work during WW2 at BP and a storyline that happens a few years after the war. For most of the book I wasn't really interested in the after the war part. At the very end that one gets pretty interesting, though.

Not a fan of the jumping back and forth in time. Good story. Didn't enjoy it as much as The Alice Network. Pleased that it all worked out for Beth in the end.

Fabulous! Another winner for Kate Quinn. Wonderfully human, engaging characters in a world filled with the chaos of war. When I first realized it was about Bletchley Park I wasn't sure I would care for it. I kind of felt the story had already been told, but I was so wrong. Kate Quinn took the lives of three women and fleshed out their stories in a way that was so captivating. There are so many trails and snippets to each of their lives that I couldn't even pick a favourite character. They were all interesting and very different. I can't wait to see what's next for this author as she has quickly become one of my favourites.

Wow. All the feels. I make no secret that Alan Turing is a personal hero. He is very much suspected of being a fellow Autistic, and because of his brilliance I was able to follow in his footsteps to rise myself out of being a trailer park kid into a career that has already made me far more successful than I ever dared imagine. So when a book is set at Bletchley Park during World War II - where Turing built the first physical “Turing Machines” after having theorized them before the war - ... it gets my attention.

And while Turing himself (along with a handful of other particularly significant real-world people of the era) does appear in the book - and even helps in the endgame itself - this book is NOT about him. Instead, this is effectively a book about the other people there at Bletchley during the period and what they went through... while spinning a tight tale of personal and national betrayals as a solid fiction story should. :) We see the era and the place through three very different eyes - a likely (female) Autistic (though Quinn never uses that word to describe the character, as it wouldn't be period-authentic) who is over-protected by her very religious parents (gee, where does that feel familiar? ;) ), a poor, down on her luck girl from the “wrong side of the tracks” just trying to get by and become better than her birth (again, where does this seem familiar? :D), and a well-connected socialite who wants to prove that she is more than just her birth. And we see how friendship and even family can grow between such disparate people. Truly an outstanding work that hooks you from Chapter 1 and keeps you reading through the final words... even though those words come over 650 pages later! Oh, and if you're familiar with The Imitation Game (the 2014 movie focusing on Turing's work at BP)... you may just have its theme running through your head when you finish this tale. Very much recommended.