Reading progress update: I've read 36 out of 304 pages.
From what I gather about this book, Smith was commissioned to write this story as a spoof of All Quiet on the Western Front.
What kind of idiot even comes up with an idea like that?
Fortunately, Smith decided against the idea and instead wrote a story about women ambulance drivers on the western front, which she is said to have based on the diaries and letters of a real woman ambulance driver.
So far, this has been both gripping and moving, and just as frank as Remarque's famous story.