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readerrobin 's review for:
The Girl You Left Behind
by Jojo Moyes
When it is well done, a split-time narrative is gripping and exciting. This one is extraordinary and triumphs over JoJo Moyes' previous work in the same vain: The Last Letter from Your Lover, another story split between the past (1960s) and today. Moyes is an incredibly diverse writer who avoids formula in every way possible. I simply could not put this book down.
The Girl You Left Behind is an intricate, emotional, and troubling story of a heroic woman surviving in a small French village under German occupation during World War One. It is also the story of another heroic woman surviving the death of her husband in modern London. Their lives weave together in a beautiful and tragic way. The reader can't help but feel sympathy for both sides of the dramatic legal battle that ensues over a precious work of art, of which the complete provenance is unknown. Right and wrong are not always black and white, and Moyes does justice to the gray areas in between.
As with The Last Letter from Your Lover, the modern story is weak compared to the historical one, and there are certainly a few prosaic moments. But Moyes is improving on how she requires the reader to feel her characters' emotions. She does not tell, she shows. You will taste the horrible black bread. You will smell the roast chicken. You will feel the lice crawling in your hair. Your stomach will lurch at the crack of the gunshots. You will suffer for your reading of this incredible story, but you will emerge changed, wiser, better for it.
The Girl You Left Behind is an intricate, emotional, and troubling story of a heroic woman surviving in a small French village under German occupation during World War One. It is also the story of another heroic woman surviving the death of her husband in modern London. Their lives weave together in a beautiful and tragic way. The reader can't help but feel sympathy for both sides of the dramatic legal battle that ensues over a precious work of art, of which the complete provenance is unknown. Right and wrong are not always black and white, and Moyes does justice to the gray areas in between.
As with The Last Letter from Your Lover, the modern story is weak compared to the historical one, and there are certainly a few prosaic moments. But Moyes is improving on how she requires the reader to feel her characters' emotions. She does not tell, she shows. You will taste the horrible black bread. You will smell the roast chicken. You will feel the lice crawling in your hair. Your stomach will lurch at the crack of the gunshots. You will suffer for your reading of this incredible story, but you will emerge changed, wiser, better for it.