The Underground Library

I'm so conflicted about this book. It's poorly written, with excessive telling instead of showing. That problem was almost unbearable at the start of the book, improving as the protagonists met each other and the plot picked up, but it remained annoying through the end of the book. People don't talk to each other like they do in this book. They certainly didn't sit around explaining the definitions of terms like Holocaust and Prisoner of War, while the events were ongoing. It felt like the author thought I was very stupid or uneducated.
I also realized that, while the three protagonists do eventually gain somewhat distinct personalities, fundamentally they were all privileged, educated women. (Yes, even the Jewish refugee, in her own way - going to the servants to learn how to do housework.) While there is some value to acknowledging that World War Two affected upper social classes, it's surprising to me that a story set in the East End, centering on a free public service, didn't explore what that meant to people who weren't already well read and articulate. Don't get me wrong, the poetry snippets were lovely enough that I resisted looking up their publication dates. But when all the protagonists have a sense of pride in their own intelligence and accomplishments, I wonder about all those who were already scraping by before the war.
Despite my complaints, I still managed to be moved almost to tears by each of the protagonists' happy endings. There was just enough emotional buy-in that I was happy to see them happy. (Come to think of it, I probably only liked the protagonists because they were three educated women like myself. I do tend to like talking with smart women, unless they're acting superior, which I saw later in the story.) Perhaps this was meant to be a feel-good story all along. That seems a little absurd given that it's set during the Blitz. Out of three protagonists, all of them got their happily ever after and none of them faced an unbearable loss? We had some side characters lose loved ones, but their grief was as distant as the poverty and lack of education in the community.
To sum up, I enjoyed parts of this when I was not distracted by the many errors, awkward wordings, or troubling perspectives suggested by the book. (I can't even get into the internment camp being presented like a fun summer vacation without doing more research first, but it made me very uncomfortable. YAY PRISON.) I don't regret having read this, especially since it's based on a true story, but I wouldn't recommend it... Except maybe to an adult reader who lacks an elementary knowledge of World War Two.