Dream When You're Feeling Blue (2007)

Kitty and Louise Heaney find their lives shattered by World War II in Dream When You're Feeling Blue: First their boyfriends enlist, then Kitty takes a job at a military factory. As usual, Elizabeth Berg doesn't miss a detail — the Heaneys' little brothers collect for the scrap drive, their sister dries her pin curls in the oven, their mother bakes ''make-do'' cake without eggs, butter, or milk. In fact, the story almost drowns in showy historical minutiae at the beginning. But Berg's strong characters soon take over, and in the process give readers a glimpse of the collective effort wartime used to be. B+