Reviews with content warning for Torture - The Nightingale

Reviews tagging 'Torture'

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

366 reviews

karlisimp's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

Another amazing historical novel from Kristin Hannah. This one was dark but so so beautiful and the way it ended had me in happy & sad tears. It’s a beautiful story about women in war and the quietness of their rebellion.
Edited to add: this is a very heavy book but I think worth it in the end, even though it could’ve been a few chapters longer.

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madgblack's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad tense fast-paced

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

5.0

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sarahannmac21's review against another edition

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challenging emotional sad tense medium-paced

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

5.0

OUCH!!!! You know when you’re little and your mom tells you not to touch the stove because it’s hot? And you do it anyway because you just want to know? And then it burns you and hurts like the devil? Yeah……. Reading this book was like that. All my friends told me how much it was going to break my heart and I was like ok sign me up.

Seriously though… what a good story. Listened to it on audio and even my husband enjoyed it- he’s not a reader.

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gimmer05's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No

5.0

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madis0ny's review against another edition

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inspiring reflective 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? Yes

5.0

The way I immediately had to finish this book once I hit chapter 11. The pace is great, the characters experience so much growth, the sadness of the war is captured so perfectly. There is an element of mystery annd hope around the narrator that kept a historical fiction fresh. I spent the last 100 pages bawling my eyes out and just in love with all of the characters and story line. One of the best books I have read with such a beautiful ending, I will think of these characters for a long time.

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missemmacrabtree's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful inspiring 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? Yes

5.0

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wardenred's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

We are all fragile, Isabelle. It’s the thing we learn in war.

I’m still not sure if it’s a good idea for me to be reading war novels at the time, but yeah, I’ve picked up another one. While these stories make me angry-sad at the humanity for repeating the same horrors over and over, there’s something almost calming about how they acknowledge those horrors and their evil. Yes, this happened. Yes, this is what people did to each other. Yes, somehow, life went on.

This book is shaped by the intertwining stories of two sisters living through the Nazi occupation/World War 2 in France. The two of them start off as practically polar opposites in how they handle their circumstances. Vianne, the eldest, is already a mother and a responsible member of her community, and her focus is on perseverance. She wants to keep her head low and wait the worst out. Isabelle, on the contrary, is all about defiance. She’s not afraid, she’s angry, and she’s only ever cautious in the sense that she does her best not to betray the resistance she is a part of.

I admit that while Isabelle’s ideals resonated with me deeply, her storyline was hard for me to get into for a large chunk of the book. The way it was written almost clashed with the heavy, real historical backdrop—as if amidst all the regular people suffering, Isabelle was this one special heroine for whom it was all about daring adventure and romance. But as the book progressed, it became clear this was a feature and not a bug, so to speak. The narrative doesn’t specifically frame Isabelle as this YAish heroine; Isabelle does. This is her defense mechanism: reframing horrors as a grand adventure. It helps her for quite a while, and it doesn’t save her at the end, but she sure saves everyone she can reach and is just an amazingly strong character.

Vianne has her defense mechanisms too, ones initially rooted in conformism and almost-denial. She understands what’s going on, but she needs to survive long enough to reunite with her husband. She has a daughter to take care of. She has her sister with her for a while. She has her charges at school and her friends to look out for, so she tries to play by the new rules. But the rules twist, the game gets darker and darker, and eventually she makes a journey from reluctantly adding the name of her Jewish friend to a list of bad elements to saving Jewish children. Her strength is different from Isabelle’s, quieter and slower to unfold, but evident all the same.

Both of these characters are so vivid, it’s like they were in the room with me as I read, and the same can be said for a lot of others on these pages. I don’t know if I can say I’m glad I’ve read this book; I cried a lot and I’m very angry. But it’s a good one for sure.

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eroseperry's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional inspiring sad medium-paced

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

5.0

This book made me love reading again. Kristin Hannah’s writing is so intricate and beautiful and I can picture the plot so clearly in my head. I sobbed, everything hurt reading this book but god I wish I could read it for the first time again

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rachelsb's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional 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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elisa_atkins's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

It’s hard to put into words the emotional journey this book takes you through. It is beautifully written and gives a new perspective to the horrors that happened in ww2.

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