The Nightingale: A Novel - A Review
- reetwrites
- Aug 23, 2015
- 2 min read
My dear readers - it’s been too long, I know! The past several weeks have been long, busy, and somewhat sleepless. And far too little of that time was devoted - to my dismay - towards writing, least of all towards writing for my blog.
BUT.
During the past few weeks, I was able to squeeze out enough time to read one of the most compelling novels I have had the fortune of stumbling upon since Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl: Kristin Hannah’s magnificently crafted The Nightingale: A Novel. Hannah sets the stage effortlessly for a France - already having been kissed by the horrors of war once before - on the brink of World War II.
In a France reluctant to accept that war is brewing on the horizon, we meet Vianne, a wife, a mother, a sister, a woman who suffered hardship and despair bitterly and is unwilling to allow her life to crumble beneath her once again. We are also introduced to the rebellious Isabelle, who is tired of being rejected and cast out - so much so that she quickly throws herself into the war, this time, casting herself away from her family.
The inside cover to the novel describes it as a story of love and “the resilience of the human spirit and the durability of women.”
But it is so much more.
The Nightingale is the story of holding onto the melody of hope, when the song of happiness has been all but drowned out. It is a tale of the endurance of relationships - both strong and weak - and testing them to their breaking point. It is the account of frustration upon seeing that which you’ve painstakingly worked for and guarded shatter just a moment from freedom - an account of mending the irreparable in ungodly times.
Though the style of writing was not one that would normally keep me engaged, it fit the tone, time, and personality of the story - one with an engrossingly addictive plot - so well, I hardly noticed it by the end of the second chapter.
Whether you’re a history buff or not, whether war stories are your jam or not, I encourage you to go read The Nightingale. It will pull at your heat and challenge your perceptions. Nightingale will leave you questioning who would matter most to you during a time of constant peril, and just how far you’d go for them.
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