Cynically Sweet (Booklikes)

Prior to reading this book, I admit that I had not known much of the events of July, 1916. Nor do I think that I had known much of the Battle of Fromelles. This book was an eye opening experience and an incredible look into such a devastating loss to Australia. Fromelles, a village in France, is the location of a battle that spanned from the 19th to the 20th of July, 1916. With 5,533 Australian soldiers dead in a matter of just days, there's a lot to be explained. Our Darkest Day discusses a lot of aspects of the battle in question, providing various evidence of the goings on. We can view numerous photographs, letters and other sorts of research. Not only does it take a look into the historical aspects of the battle, but also takes a look into more recent effects. My favourite example of this is the epilogue featuring the story Harry Willis, a soldier who was lost in the war and how his family found him.

In my opinion, I'm pretty impressed by the amount of information provided to me by this book. As I admitted prior, I didn't really know much about the battle before reading Our Darkest Day. I appreciate that the book took multiple peoples' perspective of the battle. It's interesting to see how such an event had such a huge impact on such a range of people. Even nowadays, people are still baffled by certain portions of it and some families are still missing loved ones. Overall, I found that the book was an emotional journey. Fromelles: Our Darkest Day provided me with a valuable look to Australia's past and an insight to our loss.

I found some links on Google that one might like to view if you are interested in reading a little bit more about it.
The Fromelles Project aims to identify soldiers lost at Fromelles using forensics and historical information.
http://www.army.gov.au/our-work/unrecovered-war-casualties-army/fromelles/the-fromelles-project
The Australian War Memorial
https://www.awm.gov.au/encyclopedia/fromelles/
https://www.awm.gov.au/military-event/E159/
Graves tell story of the forgotten battle of Fromelles
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/aug/19/battle-of-fromelles-graves-found
'Dear Mother, I lost all but my life'
http://www.smh.com.au/national/dear-mother-i-lost-all-but-my-life-20100716-10e6x.html

I won a copy of this book via Goodreads Giveaways, thanks to Hardie Grant Books, and these are just my honest thoughts on it.