Women of the Post Review

An emotional story, based on true events, about the all-Black battalion of the Women’s Army Corps who found purpose, solidarity and lifelong friendship in their mission of sorting over one million pieces of mail for the US Army.

–Storygraph

My Review

Simply put, this is an absolutely fantastic novel. We all know the education system is lacking so when books like this end up in my hands, I’m over the moon and it always prompts me to do more research. Because seriously, a whole battalion of Black women sorting a million pieces of mail on a time crunch and basically responsible for the boost of morale and people hearing from their loved ones? That sounds like an incredible piece of history that I need to read about.

Sanders gives us a small cast of women to focus on, they come from various backgrounds and they are all so amazing and feel so real. *Please note some of these women are real but most of the personal parts of their stories are fictionalized and Sanders does state this. *

If I’m going to give any complaints, and I am, it’s that I think I would have loved this as a complete five stars if we had more of the characters. Because this was more focused on mixing them with their experiences of their here and now for the 6888, I sometimes just wanted a push for more in-depth glances of them and their experiences.

Still, that’s a minor complaint and Sanders sets out to do exactly what she wanted to, giving us ac completing informative and emotional story of the women that certain people have tried to erase or bury. I read this as part of my local library’s 1st Thursday book club for our February pick so the review’s a long time coming but here we have it.

If you want to learn more about them there’s some great information out there! I personally watched The Six Triple Eight film on Netflix and The Six Triple Eight documentary on PBS (I have the VPM thing).

As for books, I don’t have nonfiction recs to give that I have on my list, not yet, but I do have two more fictional books on my radar for 6888 Battalion. Sisters in Arms and No Better Time.

4.5/5 Huge cups of coffee from me! Definitely perfect for WWII history buffs/historical fiction fans and those looking to promote and diversify their shelves with more Black and POC authors.