A review by vanessa1756
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful sad tense slow-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? Yes

3.5

This book... what can I say that hasn't already been said or written about it? My feelings about this book are very mixed. I read it quickly, although it could’ve been about 100 pages shorter (in my opinion) and of course I cried at the end – as was expected by the author, I guess. How can one book contain so much torture porn? It’s almost unbelievable how the characters of this novel get themselves in EVERY tragedy imaginable during WW2. Impressive, almost, if it wasn’t so gory just for the sake of making the reader feel bad.

The author took literally EVERY cliché and stereotype about WW2, Nazis, the Holocaust and especially France and just ran with it. The amount of times the characters eat baguette with cheese, I honestly can’t. A little bit more research would’ve been nice. In an anecdote about nuns from the 1650s it says that they were put under the guillotine during the French Revolution. Sure, because they’re immortal nuns who lived for 140 years.

It’s just these little things that reminded me constantly that I was reading a badly-researched novel in which America is the perfect dream destination and French people eat stinky cheese and have affairs all the time. The instant-love story didn’t do anything to make me feel more immersed, the male love interest was just terrible. The clichés and lack of continuity pulled me out of the story every other page (for example, the sisters constantly change from pants to skirt to dress in the same scene – a good editor should’ve caught up on that I believe). And the unbelievable coincidences. All in all the writing style was just...not good. Slow and really repetitive at times. Making you cry doesn't mean it is a good novel?

I guess that’s it. Somewhat glad I finally read it, felt a lot of things (good and bad) but wouldn’t recommend it to people looking for a good novel about WW2. Please go and read Suite francaise instead.
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