I found Seven Days in May in a LFL, and I was drawn in by the description of a historical drama about the Lusitania, but overall, this was just ok, perfectly fine for reading on the train.

There are 2 different stories, with 2 different protagonists, who are both Not Like Other Girls. I can’t roll my eyes hard enough at historical novels with a main character who’s smart and independent and full of present-day views, and completely unaffected by living in their society. 

In one storyline, we have American heiress Sydney who does a bunch of scandalous things like campaigning for birth control and traveling third-class! We’re told that these are scandalous, but then aren’t actually negative social consequences for that, everyone she meets is charmed and impressed by her antics.

We also have Isabel, working for the British military, in Room 40, typing decoded messages super quickly. She opens sealed messages and speaks her mind to the men who outrank her, and we’re told she’s nervous about her job, but there aren’t any professional or social consequences for it. I felt like I kept being told that women in this time can’t do X, but then they did, and it was fine. It created a strange, low-stakes atmosphere for a story that should have had pretty high stakes —  Readers know the ship is going to sink! Isabel knows and can’t stop it, while Sydney is actually on the ship! 

Not a bad book, but I think I wanted more about codebreaking  and more shipboard life, and less how both of the main characters were Not Like Other Girls.