pearleelizabeth 's review for:

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

5.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad slow-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: Yes

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“In love we find out who we want to be, in war we find out who we are.”

i’ve never read a book thats made me cry THIS FREAKING HARD!! i dont think i’ll ever recover. 😭 

though this book is fiction, the story is true. many people lived a life similar to what was written. it really makes you wonder what you would’ve done had you’d been in either vianne or isabelle’s shoes.

vianne & isabelle

isabelle is impulsive and defiant, vianne is submissive and resilient. both fighters — vianne for the future of her children and isabelle for the freedom of her country and its citizens. their relationship wasn’t perfect and for a majority of the story they were at odds. isabelle’s journey left her lonely and aching for love. she’s had only spare moments at a time with gaeton, the only person who’d she truly felt loved by, to be left spending her days alone again. vianne’s journey was plagued with love that left her vulnerable and in a constant state of guilt for the decisions she had to make to keep her children safe. conversations with her daughter revealed that she could not protect and keep the harsh truth from her daughter like she hoped she could. in the end they both suffered great loss, neither path seemed easier or more desirable than the other. 

vianne & beck 

i love a good morally gray character and the relationship that developed between these two really highlighted the complicated relationships between nazi soldiers and the french citizens. the more i learned about beck’s family life and saw the subtle ways that he cared for vianne and sophie, and how he attempted to save rachel and her children, the more i started to really like him. it really brought more depth to the story, to consider that not every soldier was entirely cruel or evil. despite his gentlemanliness, he still participated in the nazi crimes during his officer duties. there were moments that i really liked him and felt that it was unfortunate that he had been misled, had the war not happened surely he wouldve been an admirable man. there were other moments where i despised him as much as isabelle did. i think KH did a really good job making the reader feel the confusion and emotional turmoil that her characters did.

“Tears strung her eyes. She tried to smile, but her guilt was suffocating.

    “You’ve been through so much.”

     “We all have.”

     “So we choose to see miracles.””

“She was so lucky to have found this man. No wonder she had fallen in love with him. And she would find her way back to him, just as he’d found his way back to her.”

this moment between vianne and antoine was so touching. vianne felt guilty for struggling with what she had endured during the war when comparing it to what antoine went through at the war camps. loving him was difficult after he came home from the war; nothing was the same, and she had been changed by her experiences. antoine allowed her the privacy she needed to deal with her trauma internally, but still validated that she had been through a lot, that his suffering did not diminish hers, and that the pregnancy was still a miracle, was just so perfect. 

it’s probably been a week now since i finished this book as i’m wrapping up my review and i am still thinking about this book.. the nightingale has got to be one of my all time favorites now!!! i need everyone to read it immediately