Title: The Nightingale
Author: Kristin Hannah
Publisher: St. Martin's Press, February 3, 2015
Pages: 594
Genre: Historical Fiction
In love we find out who we want to be.
In war we find out who we are.
FRANCE, 1939
In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says good-bye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn’t believe that the Nazis will invade France…but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When a German captain requisitions Vianne’s home, she and her daughter must live with the enemy or lose everything. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates all around them, she is forced to make one impossible choice after another to keep her family alive.
Vianne’s sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old, searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. While thousands of Parisians march into the unknown terrors of war, she meets Gaëtan, a partisan who believes the French can fight the Nazis from within France, and she falls in love as only the young can…completely. But when he betrays her, Isabelle joins the Resistance and never looks back, risking her life time and again to save others.
In war we find out who we are.
FRANCE, 1939
In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says good-bye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn’t believe that the Nazis will invade France…but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When a German captain requisitions Vianne’s home, she and her daughter must live with the enemy or lose everything. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates all around them, she is forced to make one impossible choice after another to keep her family alive.
Vianne’s sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old, searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. While thousands of Parisians march into the unknown terrors of war, she meets Gaëtan, a partisan who believes the French can fight the Nazis from within France, and she falls in love as only the young can…completely. But when he betrays her, Isabelle joins the Resistance and never looks back, risking her life time and again to save others.
I don't really know how to review this book. On the one hand, I could try to look at it as completely fiction and say that it was poignant and beautifully written and moving. It was all of those things, without a doubt. I spent the last hour listening to it and uncontrollably crying. Not to mention the other 75 times a certain line or passage would bring me to tears.
And while it is fiction, it's not completely fiction. And how do you review the atrocities that happened, and the everyday heroism it took to survive. Not to mention the extraordinary heroism detailed here. Whether these particular women existed or not, I know that there were people with similar stories across Europe and elsewhere.
All that I can do is be glad that I've read this. Highly recommend it to everyone else. Warn you that it is a book that spans nearly the entirety of the second world war, and contains all of the horror that you might expect to come along with that time period. And hope that my heart will recover someday.
Ratings
Stars: 5/5
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