The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

I like Kristin Hannah books - a lot. This book may have replaced my favorite book by KH, The Things We Do For Love, but it's been so long since I read that one, it's hard to say.  I really loved this one!

First of all, I pretty much love all books written about WWII.  I find the strength in the people who lived, fought, survived, and died - in all of the countries involved in WWII - astounding. Close to starvation, freezing nearly to death, doing things they would have first thought unimaginable, continuing to "act"; continuing to survive; continuing to follow their conscience even at risk of death for themselves, their spouse, their children; it's absolutely inspiring.  I can't imagine ever showing such strength, and yet so many people did!

So, as the author obviously intended, I believed the narrator to be Isabelle.  The only thing that threw me is when she was talking about her son, Julien, thinking she was a meek follower, always deferring to his father.  That may have been the first inkling to me that it was Vianne and not Isabelle, because I can't imagine Isabelle ever being a meek follower!! She was incredibly impetuous and impulsive and brave and bold - and people like her don't change that drastically!  I admired both women for what they did during the war - and what they did to survive.

Again and again I am devastated by how human beings can treat other human beings as if they have no worth.  How on earth did so many Germans - Nazis - believe that starvation, torture, death, medical experiments, gas chambers, etc. was OK????  I get that Hitler was influential in Germany for many years; I get that Germany was in a bad way when Hitler came to power and they saw him as their salvation; I get that many (most?) of the SS were trained to think a certain way as young boys; I DON'T understand them accepting the cruelty against other humans.  These men were not all psychopaths; they weren't mentally ill; they had families of their own that they loved.  Where was their sense of right and wrong? Where was their morality?  Where was their conscience?  I just don't get it.

You could say that this is a story of love, sacrifice, redemption.  But those things certainly did not come easy - and it wasn't pretty.  It was real.  Horrible things happen to people who don't deserve it.  People suffer.  People sacrifice.  People die.  And I cried. :(

Wendy's Rating: *****