The Nightingale

There's a lot of WWII fiction out there. So no matter how much I say I don't want to read any more of it, I always end up with another WWII novel on my shelf waiting to be read. This one was nominated in my book club last year, although we ultimately didn't choose it. Partly because everyone was feeling a bit burnt out on WWII stories. But shortly after that, Book Riot highlighted it as one of the top rated books on Goodreads. So when I saw it at the library book sale a few weeks later, I picked it up almost without thinking. And then I spent almost a year pointedly not reading it. Even though I knew it was going to be good.

And it was good. It was completely fantastic. The novel follows two sisters in France during the German occupation. They are polar opposites, and they never really get along. But each ends up working for the resistance in her own way. Despite their antagonism, they end up taking strength from each other to make it through impossible circumstances.

This is a book about war and doing what you have to do and trying to live a life you won't regret and living with regret and hoping that it's not to late to heal or make amends or fall in love. It was incredibly readable (the 500+ page book about terrible, brutal things only took me three days to read while I had house guests) and heartbreaking and uplifting and absolutely everything you'd expect from a solid WWII book.

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