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The Aviator's Wife
The Aviator's Wife
Author: Melanie Benjamin
When Anne Morrow, a shy college senior with hidden literary aspirations, travels to Mexico City to spend Christmas with her family, she meets Colonel Charles Lindbergh, fresh off his celebrated 1927 solo flight across the Atlantic. Enthralled by Charles’s assurance and fame, Anne is certain the aviator has scarcely noticed her. But she is ...  more »
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ISBN-13: 9780345528681
ISBN-10: 0345528689
Publication Date: 12/18/2013
Pages: 448
Rating:
  • Currently 4/5 Stars.
 59

4 stars, based on 59 ratings
Publisher: Bantam Dell Publishing Group, Div of Random House, Inc
Book Type: Paperback
Other Versions: Hardcover
Reviews: Member | Amazon | Write a Review

Top Member Book Reviews

Luluette avatar reviewed The Aviator's Wife on + 47 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 6
Wow. Just...wow. It is truly possible to like a book - the way it is written, the lovely language, the flow...and absolutely HATE the main characters. I know, because I enjoyed the way that Melanie Benjamin told the tale of the fairy-tale Lindberghs, but I had real difficulties with both of them.

I knew what most people know about Charles Lindbergh before I started this book. He was the first to fly a plane alone across the Atlantic. His baby son was kidnapped and was killed.

However, if what Melanie Benjamin tells us is true, he was a horrid, loathsome person. He was cold, manipulating, unemotional, bigoted and selfish. I've rarely met a character in a novel I've disliked more, whether based on a real person or totally imaginary. And as much as I wanted to pity Anne, his wife, I ended up angry with her much of the time. I so wanted to shake her! She knew exactly what kind of person her husband was, and yet she did not have the self-respect and faith in herself to leave him. Her family was wealthy - supporting herself and her children was not the problem. Her problem was her obsession with this horrible man.

I ended up really disliking both of them in many ways. If these people truly were like the people portrayed in Ms. Benjamin's novel, I'm very glad I didn't know them.

The book itself was wonderfully written, and I continued through with it even though I hated the couple in question. That says volumes about the author's ability to tell an absorbing story.
reviewed The Aviator's Wife on
Helpful Score: 5
The Aviator's Wife has been favorably compared with "Loving Frank", and "The Paris Wife". The Aviator's Wife is about the wife of Charles Lindbergh. Anne Morrow Lindbergh was a quiet college girl when she met Charles. Although her relationship and marriage to this American Hero led her to her own great accomplishments, she was seen by the public, and the press as only his wife. The kidnapping and murder of their first child was a heartbreak neither she or Charles ever recovered from, their differing ways of dealing with this tragedy made her stronger, and I believe him weaker. Benjamin has given us a well written story of a woman, married to a famous man, who became an accomplished person in her own right. Anne Morrow Lindbergh was a woman who overcame the time she was born into, which viewed women as less important than men.
reviewed The Aviator's Wife on + 63 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 4
I liked this book very much. Bittersweet story and seemed pretty close to the historical record of Charles and Anne Morrow Lindberg.
MSW2b avatar reviewed The Aviator's Wife on
Helpful Score: 3
This book is well written, entertaining and informative. So much that I did not know about this period of time. I knew of the Lindbergh's but not the complete story. While I learned a lot, I learned it through reading an enjoyable book. I couldn't put it down and was up till 2:30 am several nights reading it. Anne Morrow Lindbergh was inspiring woman. A quiet woman who stood in the shadows of her famous husband and father. Her own accomplishments were overlooked and yet she kept going. Having read several books on wives of famous husbands- this book is much different. Anne Morrow Lindbergh is very likeable. She is an author diplomat and an accomplished aviator. She represents what so many of us have strive to be,and what we dream of being. You will love this book! I look forward to them making a movie of it sometime in the future!
reviewed The Aviator's Wife on + 304 more book reviews
Helpful Score: 3
I am just finishing up this book and I have totally enjoyed it. It is packed full of behind the scenes info that is really an eye opener. There was so much I did not know about this famous man and his left in the shadows wife and this book will not be forgotten for some time.
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reviewed The Aviator's Wife on + 3561 more book reviews
Melanie Benjamin takes on one of the greatest heroes of the twentieth century in her new book, "The Aviator's Wife." The story is told by Anne Morrow, soon to become Anne Morrow Lindbergh.

Colonel Lindbergh is as handsome and boyish as the newsreels have shown him to be when Anne meets him. She is sure he will fall for her older sister, but to her surprise, he enjoys her quiet company and her willingness to chance an adventure. Though her life as an ambassador's daughter has prepared her for society, Anne is much more comfortable out of the spotlight. The same is true of Charles.

The excesses of a celebrity-mad culture disturb them at every turn. Charles and Anne have to fly to find their peace, their time to feel united in a cause. Once they are on the ground, photographers and reporters make their lives a misery. If they aren't given an interview, they make things up.

Benjamin ably handles the heartbreak of the loss of their first-born son, Charlie, when he is kidnapped. The fog of grief, the lack of privacy, and her husband's determination that he alone can solve the mystery contribute to the crisis in the household. Once the child's body is found, Charles instructs Anne that they must go on. They must not stop and grieve, for it will not bring him back.

Lindbergh comes off as a highly discipline and yet naive man, one who loves airplanes and adventures. He is not someone to hand out compliments or try to feel another's pain. All the while, Anne continues at his side: co-piloting, writing, visiting foreign countries.


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