I think I'd prefer the film version

The last book that Books and Beer Club read was The Wolves at the Door: The True Story of America's Greatest Female Spy by Judith L. Pearson. I'm writing this several days after I finished the book (which is what I often do), but I'm also writing after the book club meeting, something I tend to not do. A book club meeting can change my initial impressions about a book and I like my reviews to reflect how I feel at the time I finished the book.

Each book club meeting starts with us giving the book a thumbs up, thumbs down or sideways. We had 20 people at this week's meeting. A large majority (nearly everyone) gave it a thumb's up. I was one of the few sideways thumbs. Virginia Hall's story, being an American female spy in World War II France was incredible. But Judith Pearson's writing was at times very dry. I did need refreshers about some what was going on in France before and during WWII. But many of those sections read like a text book. Some of the narrative about other spies that Virginia interacted with read like a phone book. As a result, it took me three weeks to plod through this book.

Not only wasn't I swayed by other book club members' more positive reviews, many of them did comment that the writing style was a bit dry. So I wasn't the only one who had very mixed feelings about The Wolves at the Door.

More highly recommended to us at the meeting was A Woman of No Importance, written by Sonia Purnell, published this year. While looking up that book, I read this:

So why haven't more people heard about Hall? A quote from Hall on the agency display offers an explanation: "Many of my friends were killed for talking too much."
But now — more than 70 years after her wartime exploits in France, and almost 40 years after her death — Virginia Hall is having a moment. Three books have just come out. Two movies are in the works.

 I am still considering picking up Purnell's book. But then again, I might just wait for the movie.