Black Dove, White Raven by Elizabeth Wein

Elizabeth Wein is an author that I pay special attention to, because her first novel, Code Name Verity, is one of my favorite young adult novels of all time.  That book, a historical fiction story about two young girls set during WWII, ripped my heart out with its intricate and emotional plot.  It's companion novel that followed, Rose Under Fire, was not quite as good as the novel that preceded it, but it was still excellent and well worth the read.  When I saw that Wein had another WWII historical fiction novel coming out, I picked it up immediately. As this was going to be my last book in March (my strong woman reading month), and it centered around mostly female characters, I thought this was a safe choice to end on.  Unfortunately, I was very disappointed in this one.

Black Dove, White Raven tells the story of Emilia (Em) and Teodros (Teo), childhood friends raised as brother and sister during the 1920s-30s.  Their mothers were stunt pilots (of the barnstorming/wing walking variety) and they all traveled the U.S.A. together, putting on shows.  Their mothers adopted the stage names Black Dove and White Raven, playing up on the fact that Teo's mother was black and Emilia's mother was white.  When Teo's mother Delia is killed in a bird strike accident, Emilia's mother Rhoda adopts him.  Eager to try and provide a life free from discrimination for her now-interracial family, Rhoda moves herself and the kids to Ethiopia, where they are eventually drawn into the conflict between Ethiopia and Italy in the time period leading up to WWII.

One point in Black Dove, White Raven's favor was its historical aspects.  I knew nothing about the war between Italy and Ethiopia during this time period, so it was interesting to read about this part of history.  I also enjoyed the portrait Wein painted of life in Ethiopia, which appeared to be simple, spiritual and beautiful. After reading Jane Goodall's biography a week prior to this, some of the cultural aspects of Africa that she discussed felt a bit familiar, even.

However, almost every other aspect of the book was disappointing.  Wein's characterization, usually one of her strengths, was very weak.  Emilia and Teo were supposed to be the stars of the show, but I found them both to be rather dull and flat characters.  The story is told through their school assignments and flight logs, in alternating chunks.  Their voices are indeed different from one another, but neither one was compelling, and I didn't connect with the deep friendship they supposedly felt towards each other.  Also, the conceit of using school assignments and flight logs to tell the story was unsuccessful because no one writes school assignments or flight logs with the level of reflection and detail that the two characters used.  It took me right out of the story as it wasn't even close to being believable as a way to narrate.  Wein would have been much better off having Em and Teo writing in journals or just alternating plain old first person narration.

The plot was meandering and boring, which is not a word I like to use when I review books.  There's no other way to explain my feelings on this one though.  It takes over half of the book for the actual plot to get started, and once the interesting stuff started, it felt very rushed.  The ending is vague and weird, and seemed to show an odd separation between Em and Teo that hadn't appeared in the novel prior to the closing pages.

The more interesting characters throughout the novel were Delia and Rhoda, the mothers.  I would have rather read a novel about them meeting and becoming stunt pilots than what we got.  It seemed obvious to me that the two characters were deeply in love with each other, but perhaps Wein was afraid to go too far down that road.  It's too bad, because that relationship would have added another layer of complexity to the story.

Ultimately, Black Dove, White Raven was okay, but nothing special.  If it wasn't for the magic of Wein's other novels, I probably wouldn't be interested in reading more of her work after reading this one.  It does succeed as a novel featuring strong female characters, but those characters remained too flat for too much of the book.  I just couldn't connect with this one.