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Love and Ruin

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Member Reviews

Love and Ruin by Paula McClain is a 2018 Ballantine Books publication.

Vivid and pulsing with atmosphere- but a very challenging read.
Wow, Paula McClain can really draw a person into a specific time zone and leave them mesmerized by the political climate, the danger, the romance, and larger than life characters the book is centered around.

I loved ‘The Paris Wife’, the fictional account of Hemingway and his first wife. The suspense in TPW was on a more personal and emotional level. But, with Martha ‘Marty’ Gelhorn, the tension comes from a variety of circumstances, but emotion is pretty far down on the list.
Marty was an author and journalist in her own right. She was a well- known and respected war correspondent covering the Spanish Civil War. Falling in love with Ernest Hemingway, a married man, was not on her agenda, but nevertheless she embarks on a long and tumultuous affair with him and eventually he leaves his second wife, Pauline, marrying Martha almost immediately after the divorce was final.
This book chronicles Marty’s life during her “Hemingway’ years, from their first meeting, to all the adventures they experienced and survived together, to their marriage, and the eventual breakup.
The author did an amazing job of recreating the atmosphere of pre-world war two, the Spanish War, the many places in which Marty traveled to, and of course Hemingway’s Key West and the home Marty and Hemingway purchased and renovated in Cuba.

She also created interwoven textures between Hemingway and Martha's struggle with her status as his lover, not his wife, and her own ambitions. The book covers the time frame in which Hemingway wrote and published ‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’, and the way the success of that novel forced a wedge between them.
However, the book, as comprehensive as it needed to be, was a real challenge for me at times. I loved the history and felt the relationship development was very well done and realistic. But, Hemingway could be so disagreeable and downright mean. I didn’t care for Marty either on a personal level, disliking the way she acquiesced to Hemingway at times, and her apathy towards breaking up his marriage. So, despite all the rich details and the lush, dangerous atmosphere the novel captured so vividly.I often felt irritable with the characters. While this may be a fictionalized accounting of events, you still can’t totally rewrite history or make the characters likeable, if they really aren’t. Still, Hemingway, warts and all, is such an intriguing person to characterize and Marty, who held her own against his rising popularity in the literary world, perhaps threatened his ego more than anyone else he was romantically associated with. Yet, she did struggle internally with her role as his lover and wife, a common conflict, as her career dueled against the typical role for women, and eventually forced Marty into a fateful decision. I admired Marty’s journalism career and her bravery, however, and believe she was a trailblazer, influencing war correspondence for many years.



The book is interesting, but on an emotional level it didn’t quite grab me in the same way ‘The Paris Wife’ did. Still, this a worthy fictional accounting of Martha and Ernest Hemingway, and is informative, and even thought provoking.

3.5 stars

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Love and Ruin is a sumptuous feast for historical fiction lovers. This novel is well-written. The characters are very detailed. This novel has easily become my favorite of 2018. I do wonder why Mrs. McLaine has skipped over the second wife’s story and moved onto the third. I hope that she will one day write about all of Hemingway’s wives. I highly recommend this for fans of biographical fiction!

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Having read THE PARIS WIFE and CIRCLING THE SUN by Paula McLain I was anxious to read LOVE AND RUIN; it was good, actually very good but her other two books were great reads.

This novel chronicles the journalistic rise of Martha Gellhorn and her relationship with Ernest Hemingway.

Ms. Gellhorn was struggling to find her way in life when she and her family meet Hemingway in Key West, Florida. He convinces Martha to join him in Spain to report on the civil war going on there. Martha acuqires a press pass, becomes a correspondent and enjoys her new career path. Ernest seduces Martha though married to Pauline Pfeiffer, the mother of his two sons. An affair ensues.

It reads like the usual Ernest Hemingway novel, in this book Ms. Gelhorn was actually the interesting one but perhaps not interesting enough to let me love this novel as I did previous novels by Ms. McLain.

I will be anxiously awaiting the next novel by Paula McLain.

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Love and Ruin by Paula McLain. If you like historical fiction you will like Love and Ruin. Living with a best selling author Ernest Hemingway can be both challenging and mind boggling

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I received a free ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I didn't ever know too much about Ernest Hemingway except that I loved "A Farewell to Arms" and that he committed suicide. I didn't know too much about his marital history. This book was about one of his wives, Martha Gellhorn, who was a writer and war corespondent

This book was okay to me, but definitely not a favorite. I felt at some points there was just too much. I started to really dislike Ernest and Martha both by the end. I think this was supposed to make you grow to respect her, but she came across as whiny and weak to me. People that like historical fiction may enjoy it, but if you don't want to hate Ernest Hemingway, this isn't the book for you!.

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Once again, Paula Mclain does not disappoint. I read The Paris Wife and thoroughly enjoyed it and now she is back with Love and Ruin.

Love and Ruin is the story of Ernest Hemingway and his third wife, Martha Gelhorn. I knew nothing of their relationship before reading this historical fiction. This is the story of what happens when two very strong people, in basically the same field, try to love and live their lives together.

Martha was an upcoming young journalist and writer when she met Ernest Hemingway. She wanted to cover what was happening in Spain during the Spanish civil war. Her stories focused on the people and their personal stories. While being thrown into life or death situations, she began to fall in love with Ernest, even though he had a wife and children at home.

Martha craved the excitement of being in the action as much as Hemingway did. They were both such strong people, committed to causes, committed to their writing and committed to each other. There was jealousy on both sides and it was a relationship that was almost doomed from the very beginning. Too intense, too much in common, too much alike.

I really enjoyed this book. Martha Gelhorn was fearless in her pursuit of a story. I’ve read that Martha Gelhorn is portrayed as someone who latched on to Hemingway to further her career. Paula Mclain presents her more as an equal, at least in terms of drive and ambition. She became one of the greatest war correspondents in history.

I received an ARC of this book.

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I received an advance copy of Love ad Ruin from Net Galley. I am a huge fan of Paula McLain. I have loved The Paris Wife and Circling the Sun. This book cemented that I will read all of Paula's books.
The story is about Marty Gellhorn and Ernest Hemingway as they progress through being journalists, authors and finally a married couple. It is fiction with historical events mixed in to tell their love story. I won't go into the plot line chapter by chapter but I will ask to to read this one. You won't be able to put it down.

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I typically love Paula's books but this one just didn't do it for me. I found the story really slow to start which made it really hard for me to get into. And it felt like Martha was this meek thing with none of the gumption that I had learned of.

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This is a good historical fiction read about Hemingway and his third wife. I was not as enamored with this book as I was with The Paris Wife. I received a copy from NetGalley and this is my honest review.

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Love and Ruin is my first read by Paula McLain. I really wanted to like this book. I just could not get into this book at all. I do like historical fiction and I know nothing about Hemingway, but I found this book very dull. I only read 20% of the book before just giving up. I just didn't care about Gellhorn or Hemingway's story-line or the Spanish Civil War. Special thanks to Netgalley and Ballantine Books for the advanced copy to read in exchange for my honest opinion.

#LoveAndRuin #NetGalley

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The author of THE PARIS WIFE takes on the story of Martha Gellhorn, a war correspondent and Hemingway's third wife. Being married to a man larger than life while reporting in war-torn countries proves to be an impossible situation. My sympathies lay with Gellhorn, a woman who wanted to have her career while sharing her life with Hemingway, but he wouldn't or couldn't deal with the arrangement. I enjoyed reading the book but not as much as I loved THE PARIS WIFE.

(posted on Goodreads and Amazon)

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This was another wonderfully researched and written story. This author seems to get better and better. I couldn't put it down

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What a book!, what a story!! The stormy relationship between Hemingway and Gellhorn is relentless. I admire her so much. She was such a strong woman, traveling the world, alone, as a war correspondent, She certainly put up with plenty in that relationship, and the fact that he said to her in the Epilogue, I’m going to marry her...meaning another woman, was just too too much! Paula McLain did remarkable research into this novel. I wonder at it! A well worth it read, completely fascinating, at times very difficult to read about WWII. Thank you to Netgalley and Ballantine books for the perusal for an honest review.

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Historical fiction about an intriguing character like Ernest Hemmingway...you have my interest piqued. What a character he was and what a good job McLain did in showing us more possible sides to him and his life. HIs words added to the historical situations made this an interesting read, a read that made me want to know more! That is a sign of a good historical fiction novel! Highly recommend.

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Oh my, Paula McLain had just depicted an even better, more gripping angle in Ernest Hemingway's irresistible and destructive magnetic force of a life! This novel is about a courageous, passionate and talented Martha Gellhorn, which was a beautiful and significant war journalist and writer. Her talents and energy was a great source of attraction for Hemingway. This is a well told story of their love and complexities. I highly recommend it. Thank you NetGalley, publisher and author for the reader's copy. All opinions are my own.

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Love and Ruin was a good read by Paula McLain. In 1937 Martha went to Madrid to find out about the Spanish Civil War. Martha finds herself falling in love with Ernest Hemingway. I loved reading about how they fell in love and the result of said love.

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This is a great continuation into Ernest Hemingway's life. It is the story of his third wife and their love story. Fascinating read and must read for anyone who loves Hemingway or wants more insight into his life.

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2.5 Stars

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for supplying me this ARC in exchange for a honest review.

This book has high reviews, and I am in the minority on this one. I so wanted to enjoy this book. After a month of on again off again reading, I barely finished. For me, this book was extremely slow, picked up with high hopes, and let me down again. I truly wanted to like Martha, who ended up being Ernest Hemingway’s third wife. I have read other books by this author and loved them – just not this one.

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This is a favorite author as she writes with such masterful talent that her stories captivate the reader. This is a fascinating story of Ernest Hemingway's third wife.. She was a women who exceeded him in career accomplishments and was a woman before her time.. I loved reading of her successes and her independent spirit. I am glad this is a author who writes of strong women and does not underscore their accomplishments in the least.
Martha Gellhorn was a respected person for her time. She was a war correspondent for 60 years, and an author in her own right, but in the times they lived women were not considered little more then property and her work was not valued over her husbands.

The reader is swept along as Martha travels as a correspondent to the Spanish Civil War, and the events leading up to WWII. She was very driven, independent, and adventurous, but also deeply compassionate and very drawn to the untold stories of the suffering of people. Her first-person narration is what makes this book so riveting, She was the only woman to land at Normandy on D-Day, and was among the first journalists to report from the Dachau concentration camp. She is a fascinating subject of history and I thank the author for this historical account of her fascinating life. This is a book i highly recommend.
Thank you for the ARC which does not influence my personal opinion.

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Love and Ruin by Paula McLain tells us the story of Ernest Hemingway and his marriages to, war journalist Martha Gellhorn, his third wife. This book was beautifully written and captivating. I enjoyed the storyline and how Martha wouldn't let her marriage deny her the life she desired. This book is sad and also inspiring. It tells the story of Ernest Hemingway and his marriage that I hadn't known about before. I liked that it is tells how Martha wouldn't let her career take a backseat to that of her husbands.

I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a review copy of the book. All opinions expressed are my own.

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