Customer Reviews

Guests of the Emperor

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This is a spellbinding novel of POW women in Indonesia during ww2. It describes their time in the prison camps with so much realism I sometimes felt like crying. This has become my most cherished book - one I can read over and over again without getting bored. I *highly* recommend this treasure!

I think this book should be MUST reading for students of the second world war. It is important to see just how much these women survived and how unimportant the "things" we consider important in our everyday life really are. Also how life isn't always "fair" and how we need to appreciate all the good things. Thank you, all who preserved the world, for those of us living now.

This was a very moving account of women in a Japanese prisoner of war camp during the second world war. This was apparently very well researched book, using diaries of prisoners.

The characters were well-developed and certainly believable. Readers who enjoyed Marge Piercy's "Gone to Soldiers" or the PBS series "A Town Like Alice" will find similar emotions and intensity here.

Brooks also writes the mystery/humor series ("Grime and Punishment", "Silence of the Hams", etc) under the name of Jill Churchill.

Few people are really aware of the horrors that civilians experienced in the Pacific Theater during WWII. The author has done an outstanding job of presenting the daily struggles for survival that the women encountered as prisoners of the Japanese. It reads not only as a great novel, but shares a great history lesson as well. There was a made for TV movie based on the book, but it seems impossible to find a copy of it now. The story of these women should be required reading for American history students!

Singapore, December 7, 1941. The Japanese attack without warning and everyone is scrambling to get out of Asia and back on home turf - including the Hamptons. Hazel's father had been in the country investigating business opportunities when the attacks began, and her mother refuses to leave until they locate him. When passage on a ship is found, one sister must go, and Hazel chooses to stay behind with her mother, although conditions deteriorate to the point of no return and instead of getting out safely they end up as civilian prisoners of war - "guests of the emperor".

Since the Japanese never signed onto the Geneva Convention, let's just say there's not a lot of interest in humane conditions for their prisoners, although they are more than happy to use them for forced labor. As the weeks stretch into months, the women are moved from one camp to the next, on foot and with no concern if any die along the way. They must learn to develop their own society of rules and laws to keep order amongst themselves, sharing the little food and clothing they are allowed for the good of the community, always putting the children first and all the while not knowing if this day will be the last.

"But the gunshot had stunned them all into a realization of their situation. They were animals in a cage."

"I don't want people to dislike me, but I realized today that I want to stay alive more than I want to be liked. Far more. And I'm going to do everything I can to survive this."

We all know who won the war in the end so I'm not spoiling, but what of life afterwards for those do make it out? Can you just walk back into the same life after years of hell and starvation?

"I've learned to eat very slowly to make three ounces of rice last half an hour. I've learned to treat insect bites with bits of rag boiled in palm oil instead of iodine and bandages. I've learned how to balance two buckets of water on a pole without spilling it...I can make a pair of shorts with a rusty needle and the sleeve of a dead nun's habit, and I'm very good at not seeing the protein-rich bugs we leave in the rice now for the nutritional value...So, Hazel, tell me: how is any of that going to do me any good in the outside world?"

And how do you deal with those on the outside who have no concept of what you've just lived through?

"...but don't you realize that we went through a lot too? War is hard on everybody. Why, the rationing alone was enough to make us wild. A limit on how much butter and milk you could buy and-and the shortages!...For a while I was down to two pairs of nylons and thought I'd never get any more."

Wow, just wow. This book covers a serious topic and won't be for every reader, especially those who like things sugar-coated. You will cry and laugh along with them, and cheer for the ones strong enough to survive. This is out of print, but very much worth hunting down a copy, and I understand it was made into a movie for Lifetime Television but outside of a minor listing on IMDB I've not found out much else about it.

I read this book years ago, loved it and have for years wanted to read it again. However, I could not remember the title or the author. I searched every used book store I came across and finally found it again recently and was thrilled. It is a wonderful story of courageous women. It is a must read for any WW2 history buff. As someone else stated, I, too, wish Steven Spielburg would make it into a movie. This story comes alive and the characters are so real that I found myself forgetting that I was reading a novel. I was there, living this story with the characters. I could not put the book down. This is one of the best books I have ever read and I will guard my new copy closely. I do not want to ever lose it again!

These women were prisoners of War. Food was poor and the captors brutal. These women merely existed for over four years. That is a long time to withstand torment, pain, and suffering. This book shows that War is hell. These women endured and showed great strength and courage. They made a movie about this book called "Silent Cries". It was very well done and brought this book to life. This book is exceptional. I would highly recommend this book to my family and friends.

Really well written "beach read" with some history thrown in. Entertaining. Much, much better than the movie made of it.

The author has a website I believe at cozybooks dot com and anyone who has appreciated reading the book might leave the author a note there. The other reviews have captured the impact of reading this book. It's so vividly clear that I too can imagine a new film with the likes of our favorite actresses - Jodie Foster and cameos for Glenn Close, Susan Sarandon, etc.

Janice Brooks Young's historical novel leads me to think, as many of us are today, about the meaning of war and peace in a climate of global conflict.* I'm reflecting on humankind's inability to live peacefully, not to mention equitably, within the limits of earth's resources.

This novel is based on substantial research into WW II Sumatran internment camps for women. I'm not a historian so I can't comment on how closely it portrays living there. But I do intend to take my own advice this Thanksgiving week; let me think not only about my comfy life in America 2007 compared to theirs. I continue to think of ways other than misguided war and accompanying atrocities that we can create a just world where generosity of spirit is valued and domination and cruelty are not.

* This book like the Iraq war is profoundly disturbing.

I have read and re-read this book. It's a great story about the courage of women who are captured by the Japanese in WWII, their humanity, and survival.
I highly recommend the book.
Mine is about worn out because I bought it, used. I will be ordering a new one!