Reviews with content warning for Miscarriage - The Nightingale

Well, I finally read this one! It’s easy to see why so many people loved this book. Isabelle and Vianne are two characters that will stick with me for a very long time. I loved that while they seemed incredibly different, at their cores, they were both trying to survive and do what they could to help others. It is a long book and understandably so, covering much of WWII, but I was never bored or waiting for action to happen. Even in the more mundane scenes of every day life, I felt completely swept up in this story. It is not an easy read, which I’m sure is obvious by the time period covered. The ruthlessness, cruelty and hatred the Nazis showed was unimaginable. I cried several times. However, there are still so many moments of great bravery, friendship and love in this book amid all the horrors going on. I’m very glad I read this book.

CW: genocide, rape, death of a child, mentions of miscarriages, murder, death, mentions of cancer, war, antisemitism

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rebecca_bluedragonskeep_books's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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pranjuli's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Made me stay up all night to read the entire second half of the book in one sitting. Loved Vianne's character arc. From the beginning, she was a fully formed person with a past, present, a future. She had reasons for acting like she did. She actually felt like doing the representation of women's stories in the war that has been talked about the book itself. And still, she had so much space for growth, to change. From the first page when she is introduced, I was constantly engaged in her story, I kept wanting to go back to what was happening with her.

Not a big fan of Isabelle - only liked in her in the last leg of the book. Her dialogues and scenes were almost always crassly written. A lot of the things and feelings she had, were only told, not shown.

For example, in one chapter she would be with her father in his apartment, then go on an adventure, then we'll see Vianne's life for some time, and then it will cut to some months later and Isabelle would say she hadn't gone to the apartment in Paris in 18 months. She missed home. Slept in such places, lived likes so, bla bla.

We didn't see any of that. We just listened.

The tension in the relationship between Isabelle and her father could have been structured much better in the first half of the book. Same goes for Isabelle and Gaetan's relationship. Infact (this might be a controversial opinion), I feel like Gaetan was not needed only in this story. He felt like a plot device and one that could easily have been fulfilled with any other already existing character. In my personal opinion, he brought Isabelle's character down

- she had needed his 'recommendation' to get in the circle, she needed his care to fill the vacancy of familial love, she kept waiting for him to even die at the right moment, etc.

Honestly, could have done without him.

Isabelle, overall in the first half, was too annoying and desperate and stupid. I know the author wanted to show her 'impetuousness', but she was actually very unlikable in the beginning. Beck deserved better </3 Sophie </3
Also, there were a lot of inconsistencies in the timeline of the girls' early life, their memories of the maman and the first world war. It kept irking me now and again and pulled me out of the scene often.
The book could have done with quite some editing (i feel atleast 50-60 pages could be edited out).

Yet I think this was a good book to read about French women's experience in the war, about a country under occupation during a war, about good men like Beck who were enemies but still good men, to help you think of the countless Nightingales that soared in the skies during the heinous wars fought in Europe at that time, and innumerable times in every corner of the world since time immemorial and their brunts that have been borne by women throughout the entirety of human history.

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ashleyaselin's review against another edition

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dark emotional inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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kaligray's review

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challenging emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

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