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3.97 AVERAGE
3.97 AVERAGE
Another 4.5 stars by this author (I wish we could give half stars). Very suspenseful....and a happy ending. :)
5 stars! This is my 4th Jojo Moyes book and dang! this woman can write.
I almost gave it a 4.5 stars because the beginning was a little boring and I had to push through the first 3 chapters before I got into the story.
I'm going to give the CAWPILE system a try for this review and here it goes:
Characters: Character development was satisfactory. I could clearly see the parallels of resilience, determination and courage in both Sophie and Liv. Even Paul, Edouard and the Kommandant who I feel were secondary, were well defined.
Atmosphere: It felt realistic and evocative of both timelines and locations. I could easily picture the hotel and the Glass House.
Writing: The style was sublime, descriptive, evocative and engaging. I may baised because I have aways liked her style so this was a no-brainer for me.
Plot-Intrigue: I am merging these two because in this story they go hand in hand and it was just...chef's kiss. So very well done, with a plost twist to match.
Logic: If you suspend your disbelief, which I feel you sort of need to for stories like this, and in fiction in general you are good to go. Everything fell into place where and when it needed to.
Enjoyment: If my 5 stars are not enough, this was a book I thoroughly enjoyed. I was moved, shocked, upset, and overcome with emotion.
I highly recommend this book!
I almost gave it a 4.5 stars because the beginning was a little boring and I had to push through the first 3 chapters before I got into the story.
I'm going to give the CAWPILE system a try for this review and here it goes:
Characters: Character development was satisfactory. I could clearly see the parallels of resilience, determination and courage in both Sophie and Liv. Even Paul, Edouard and the Kommandant who I feel were secondary, were well defined.
Atmosphere: It felt realistic and evocative of both timelines and locations. I could easily picture the hotel and the Glass House.
Writing: The style was sublime, descriptive, evocative and engaging. I may baised because I have aways liked her style so this was a no-brainer for me.
Plot-Intrigue: I am merging these two because in this story they go hand in hand and it was just...chef's kiss. So very well done, with a plost twist to match.
Logic: If you suspend your disbelief, which I feel you sort of need to for stories like this, and in fiction in general you are good to go. Everything fell into place where and when it needed to.
Enjoyment: If my 5 stars are not enough, this was a book I thoroughly enjoyed. I was moved, shocked, upset, and overcome with emotion.
I highly recommend this book!
4 stars might be a little generous; I would probably give it 3.5 if I could. While I really enjoyed the historical parts of the book, I found the present day portions less compelling and somewhat contrived. However, this was such an improvement on the last Jojo Moyes book I read, The One Plus One (which I did not enjoy at all), that I could not help but be impressed. This was the perfect holiday read.
This book was fantastic. I really love the complex characters that JoJo Moyes creates, as well as the complicated and often emotionally charged situations they find themselves in. In this book, the author deftly weaves the past (world War 1 France and Germany) and the present into an overall compelling storyline that allows the truth to be known in a dynamic way. The parallels between the two storylines are not always obvious, which is satisfying when the connections are made. It's also,an interesting commentary on public opinion, both before and after the advent of the Internet...and interestingly we see that human nature has not changed. I highly recommend this book.
This is the first Jojo Moyes book I've read. I want to read Me Before You, but I just haven't been able to bring myself to be that sad, you know? Sometimes life is sad/stressful enough and I want to read something to escape that. I'm sure that means I'm missing out on a great story, but for the time being that's what it is. That said, I can't quite remember why I put The Girl You Left Behind on reserve in the library, I had to wait quite a while so it's been probably a month or two since I originally did it. There were times when reading when I was worried the book would destroy me, and I won't lie there were tears, but they were mostly happy tears and I'm so happy I finally read something by Jojo Moyes.
Once I actually got the book from the library I had a moment of wondering why I requested it in the first place. World War I isn't really my sweet spot. I love historical fiction and the US during World War I is more of my thing, but France during World War I doesn't really hold any interest for me. But, I love art and I was super curious about the connection between Sophie in the early 20th century and Liv in the early 21st century.
The story starts in France, with Sophie. She is married to an artist, not a famous one, but a good one who's studied with Matisse, who has gone off to fight in the war. Rather than staying in Paris without him she returns to her hometown that's now being occupied by Germany. Along with her sister she runs what used to be a hotel/restaurant but is now more of a bar where the locals meet to complain about the occupying Germans. The French people in the town are in pretty bad shape, it's mostly women, children, and the elderly who are left and they're not treated particularly well by the Germans. They have limited food rations and virtually no autonomy.
Sophie, and to a certain extent her sister, join with the townspeople to do some gorilla resistance against the Germans, but mostly they're just trying to stay alive. Sophie was a fascinating character. The story really gets going when there is a new German commander who takes an interest in Sophie and in particular a painting Sophie's husband did of her that hangs in the house. Sophie hates the new commander because he's a German comander, but then their relationship grows more complicated. The commander makes Sophie and her sister cook for the German soldiers which brings him around often and, even though she would hate to admit it, Sophie actually seems to like him. They bond over art and, again she would hate to admit this, I think she likes having a man pay attention to her. However, as things grow worse in their town (less food, less freedom, more discontent) Sophie starts to come under scrutiny for her relationship with the commander.
Fast forward to the 21st century and Liv is barely getting by in London. Her husband, a well known architect, passed away several years before and she pretty much hasn't moved on. She still lives in the same crazy house he designed barely making ends meet and pretty much just being miserable. One of the few things she loves is a painting her and her husband bought together called The Girl You Left Behind, the painting of Sophie by her husband that the German commander admired. When Liv goes out one night she meets a man she actually feels a connection with. A man as it turns out, by a cruel twist of fate, is working to find Liv's beloved painting and return it to the artist's family who only recently realized it went missing and believe it to have been stolen by the Germans during World War I.
That was kind of a longer explanation of the story than I wanted to write. This is such a nuanced story that it's difficult to get into all the reasons I liked it without trying to get all the basic info out there. As someone who loves art and has a real sense of right and wrong it was interesting to see my feeling evolve over the course of the story. Sophie's main goal is to be reunited with her husband and she truly believes that the German commander can help her. In an effort to gain his assistance she makes some truly insane choices and it's really difficult to understand where she's coming from and not just want to smack her over the head.
Knowing what we know about Sophie it makes what happens to Liv really difficult to reconcile. The looting by the Germans in World War II was obviously terrible and wrong, but was what happened to The Girl You Left Behind looting? And is it really right to take it away from Liv, who loves the painting and who bought it in what she believed was a legitimate sale? In a lot of ways Sophie's decisions in trying to be reunited with her husband are similar to the decisions Liv makes in trying to keep the painting. I absolutely understood why Liv wanted to keep the painting, but she's broke and spending potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars to try to keep one painting, a painting that might have been stolen, just seems utterly insane. But The Girl You Left Behind represents her husband and she absolutely still loves him.
Bottom Line: In the end this book is a love story. It's a love story between Sophie and her husband, between Liv and her husband, between Liv and her painting (which represents her husband), and, in a really complex and interesting what I didn't even talk about here, between Liv and the guy who's trying to take her painting away. If you love art, history, romance, or just a good book I definitely recommend picking this up.
This review first appeared on my blog
Once I actually got the book from the library I had a moment of wondering why I requested it in the first place. World War I isn't really my sweet spot. I love historical fiction and the US during World War I is more of my thing, but France during World War I doesn't really hold any interest for me. But, I love art and I was super curious about the connection between Sophie in the early 20th century and Liv in the early 21st century.
The story starts in France, with Sophie. She is married to an artist, not a famous one, but a good one who's studied with Matisse, who has gone off to fight in the war. Rather than staying in Paris without him she returns to her hometown that's now being occupied by Germany. Along with her sister she runs what used to be a hotel/restaurant but is now more of a bar where the locals meet to complain about the occupying Germans. The French people in the town are in pretty bad shape, it's mostly women, children, and the elderly who are left and they're not treated particularly well by the Germans. They have limited food rations and virtually no autonomy.
Sophie, and to a certain extent her sister, join with the townspeople to do some gorilla resistance against the Germans, but mostly they're just trying to stay alive. Sophie was a fascinating character. The story really gets going when there is a new German commander who takes an interest in Sophie and in particular a painting Sophie's husband did of her that hangs in the house. Sophie hates the new commander because he's a German comander, but then their relationship grows more complicated. The commander makes Sophie and her sister cook for the German soldiers which brings him around often and, even though she would hate to admit it, Sophie actually seems to like him. They bond over art and, again she would hate to admit this, I think she likes having a man pay attention to her. However, as things grow worse in their town (less food, less freedom, more discontent) Sophie starts to come under scrutiny for her relationship with the commander.
Fast forward to the 21st century and Liv is barely getting by in London. Her husband, a well known architect, passed away several years before and she pretty much hasn't moved on. She still lives in the same crazy house he designed barely making ends meet and pretty much just being miserable. One of the few things she loves is a painting her and her husband bought together called The Girl You Left Behind, the painting of Sophie by her husband that the German commander admired. When Liv goes out one night she meets a man she actually feels a connection with. A man as it turns out, by a cruel twist of fate, is working to find Liv's beloved painting and return it to the artist's family who only recently realized it went missing and believe it to have been stolen by the Germans during World War I.
That was kind of a longer explanation of the story than I wanted to write. This is such a nuanced story that it's difficult to get into all the reasons I liked it without trying to get all the basic info out there. As someone who loves art and has a real sense of right and wrong it was interesting to see my feeling evolve over the course of the story. Sophie's main goal is to be reunited with her husband and she truly believes that the German commander can help her. In an effort to gain his assistance she makes some truly insane choices and it's really difficult to understand where she's coming from and not just want to smack her over the head.
Knowing what we know about Sophie it makes what happens to Liv really difficult to reconcile. The looting by the Germans in World War II was obviously terrible and wrong, but was what happened to The Girl You Left Behind looting? And is it really right to take it away from Liv, who loves the painting and who bought it in what she believed was a legitimate sale? In a lot of ways Sophie's decisions in trying to be reunited with her husband are similar to the decisions Liv makes in trying to keep the painting. I absolutely understood why Liv wanted to keep the painting, but she's broke and spending potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars to try to keep one painting, a painting that might have been stolen, just seems utterly insane. But The Girl You Left Behind represents her husband and she absolutely still loves him.
Bottom Line: In the end this book is a love story. It's a love story between Sophie and her husband, between Liv and her husband, between Liv and her painting (which represents her husband), and, in a really complex and interesting what I didn't even talk about here, between Liv and the guy who's trying to take her painting away. If you love art, history, romance, or just a good book I definitely recommend picking this up.
This review first appeared on my blog
A little overly convenient at times, but such an enjoyable read. I love art history and food writing and historical fiction, and this had all that.
I think the cover had me expecting a more chick-lit type story but this is a seriously great WWI/present day crossover tied to a work of art. I thoroughly enjoyed every single bit of this novel and was really happy I checked it out from the library.
Wie ich schon gesagt habe hat mir die erste Geschichte (im Weltkrieg) besser gefallen als die von 2006. Trotzdem hat mir das Buch alle sin allem gut gefallen. Ich mag es einfach wie Jojo Moyes Bücher schreibt <3