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A review by aadrita
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
5.0
If you are feeling too happy or looking for an excuse to cry your heart out, by all means read this book. I have been sitting quietly for the past hour thinking how to mend my heart which had been shattered by this book and wondering how I can review this book that will do it justice. Like the melancholic song of a Nightingale, this is a story of love and of sorrow.
During the second world war while the men of France left to fight the Nazis in the front line, the women and children left behind had to fight a different war on their own. This book shows how women fought in this shadow war on their own, how it changed them, how they did whatever they had to do to survive, how they helped in the war and more importantly, when the war ended how they picked up the pieces and started their lives over.
In the Nazi occupied France, women and children had to lived off of scrapes. Hours and hours standing in ration queues gave a family a tiny amount of food which was barely enough for one person. There were medicine to be had even in exchange for the rarest jewels. Families had to spend coldest winter nights huddled together in small space after the Nazis took their blankets and furniture and even the best rooms of their houses. The war turned the most timid of them into the bravest. It forced a whole generation of children to grow up with their innocence stripped away, their childlike sense of wonder lost. It turned them into emotionless, cynical versions in the face of pure horror.
The book follows the Nightingale sisters Vianne and Isabelle. It's a story of how the ever rule following good girl Vianne struggled to keep her daughter alive, waited for her husband to return, tried to help her Jewish best friend all while keeping her head down in front of the Nazi that billeted at her home. It's about the rebellious young Isabelle and her contribution in the Free Fance Movement. Their journey, their complex emotions and their growth throughout the whole book hit me hard.
I can't vouch for the historical accuracy of the book. It's a work of fiction inspired by true facts and it does a phenomenal job at describing the ugliness of the war.
During the second world war while the men of France left to fight the Nazis in the front line, the women and children left behind had to fight a different war on their own. This book shows how women fought in this shadow war on their own, how it changed them, how they did whatever they had to do to survive, how they helped in the war and more importantly, when the war ended how they picked up the pieces and started their lives over.
In the Nazi occupied France, women and children had to lived off of scrapes. Hours and hours standing in ration queues gave a family a tiny amount of food which was barely enough for one person. There were medicine to be had even in exchange for the rarest jewels. Families had to spend coldest winter nights huddled together in small space after the Nazis took their blankets and furniture and even the best rooms of their houses. The war turned the most timid of them into the bravest. It forced a whole generation of children to grow up with their innocence stripped away, their childlike sense of wonder lost. It turned them into emotionless, cynical versions in the face of pure horror.
The book follows the Nightingale sisters Vianne and Isabelle. It's a story of how the ever rule following good girl Vianne struggled to keep her daughter alive, waited for her husband to return, tried to help her Jewish best friend all while keeping her head down in front of the Nazi that billeted at her home. It's about the rebellious young Isabelle and her contribution in the Free Fance Movement. Their journey, their complex emotions and their growth throughout the whole book hit me hard.
I can't vouch for the historical accuracy of the book. It's a work of fiction inspired by true facts and it does a phenomenal job at describing the ugliness of the war.