Tittle           : The Nightingale

Author        : Kristin Hannah

Pub Date    : October 08, 2015

Pages          : 608

My Rating   : ★★★★★

The Summary

1939 in France As her husband, Antoine Mauriac, departs for the Front, Vianne Mauriac bids him farewell in the peaceful village of Carriveau. The Nazis won't attack France, in her opinion. However, they do invade in large numbers of marching soldiers, convoys of trucks and tanks, and planes that fill the sky and rain bombs on defenseless people. Vianne and her daughter are forced to coexist with the enemy when a German captain seizes their home. Otherwise, they risk losing everything. She is compelled to make one impossible decision after another in order to keep her family alive when they are without food, money, or hope and as danger mounts all around them.

Isabelle, Vianne's sister, is a disobedient 18 year old woman who is pursuing her goals with all the wild ardor of adolescence. She meets Gäetan, a partisan who thinks the French can fight the Nazis from within France, while thousands of Parisians march into the unknowable terrors of war, and she falls in love as only the young can completely. Isabelle joins the Resistance after he betrays her, never looks back, and repeatedly puts her life in danger to defend others.

The Nightingale is a heartbreakingly beautiful book that honors the tenacity of women and the resiliency of the human spirit. It tells the stories of two sisters who are separated by time, experience, ideals, passion, and circumstance, and who each set out on a perilous journey toward survival, love, and freedom in a war-torn, German-occupied France. It is a book for a lifetime and one for everyone.

My Review

It's incredibly lovely, yet I have no idea how to accurately express it.

The characters in the book were a mixture of good people with pure hearts who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and malevolent characters with corrupted minds and hearts. Both sisters are incredibly strong and fearless, despite having different personalities.

Although the wording is different from what I had in mind, it still manages to be incredibly interesting and complement one another. The premise was excellent and the tempo was excellent. I admire that a woman who contributed, especially during the time of the war, is at the center of the narrative.

If you're looking for a book with a sister family and need some encouragement as a woman, you might want to try reading this one and hopefully you'll understand the excitement as well.

My ratings score:

★★★★★ Fantastic! Made me go through a lot of emotions & the entire book is incredibly beautifully done! 

★★★★ Memorable! Despite its shortcomings, this book was incredible and taught us a lot. 

★★★ Good work! Nothing particularly remarkable, but still nice.

★★ Meh... Mediocre with great room for improvement.

★ Extremely Poor.