The Nightingale Book Review

Hello everyone and welcome back to the blog! Today, I am back with another book review. I’ve been wanting to read The Nightingale for as long as I can remember. Every review I’ve seen has always said nothing but good things. So, let’s get into it!

In The Nightingale, we follow the story of two sisters, Isabelle and Vianne, during World War II. This is a story of how women survived during the war and what they endured while the men were off fighting. This is a story about love, survival, fear and how all those things can make or break you as a person.

I’ve read plenty of WWII historical fiction before, but there was something different about this one. Kristin Hannah’s writing is simply beautiful. She captures the emotions of the character in a way that felt so real to me. While the war is happening, the sisters are dealing with things like a broken family, insecurities, wanting to help fight against the Nazis but how much can you risk when you have a family to take care of? Seeing the internal battle of each sister was truly something I will never forget.

When I think of WWII historical fiction books, I think of the concentration camps and those in the camps…what they had to endure, their survival stories. This is one of the first historical fiction books (that I've read) where it showed what was happening to the non-Jewish, non-communist, non-thieves/criminal people. On the one hand you have an older sister who has a family to protect and is afraid to rebel against the rules but still wants to do what is right. Then you have a younger sister, already rebellious in nature, who will not stand to show allegiance to the Nazis. In the beginning they were complete opposites, but in the end their resistance to Nazi Germany almost made them into the same person. Without giving too much away, they both did what they could under their own circumstances.

While reading, learning new details about the events to come or knowing why a character was asking specific questions…it was heart wrenching because we know what ends up happening. We know the Jewish are rounded up, we know where they are being sent, etc. We know the timeline and how bad things were over in Europe. I don’t want to give too much away, but I felt myself almost anxious reading some scenes because I knew what the consequences were going to be.

But knowing what happens and reading the details about what happened are two different things. In the author’s note in the back of the book, Hannah states that this story was inspired by a lot of different women’s stories from that time. While Isabelle and Vianne weren’t real people, their actions were inspired by real people and true events.

I cannot begin to describe how beautiful this book was to read. The writing was so detailed and could just punch you in the gut sometimes. The ending had me in tears.

Overall, I cannot praise this book enough; I highly recommend checking this book out. 5/5 stars.

Alright folks, that is all I have for this week! Come back next Wednesday for another blog post. As always, thank you for reading :)