The Nightingale

by: Kristin Hannah

SPOILER ALERT!!!!*****

Ok, where to even start. This book is amazing! It easily became one of the top 10 favorite books I’ve ever read, and that's saying a lot for me. You will come to learn that I basically love almost every book I read!

So, if you have not read this book, please do yourself a favor…stop reading this review and GO BUY THE BOOK!!

I appreciate a good period piece book but I also love a good WWII fiction. This is both!!

Let’s dig in shall we? This story is actually two stories in one. As you are reading, it seems that it could even be three. You’ve got your two main gals. These girls have been pushed away by their father after their mother passes away. This story starts out with everyone fleeing Paris to the country side. “Fleeing” describes a hurried getaway, but this getaway is horrible. Hundreds and thousands are walking these dirt roads to the country side. They started out trying to carry all of their belongings but they have all walked so far for so long that it is all being abandoned as they walk. One of our leading ladies, Isabelle, is on this journey, being sent to go live with her sister Vianne (whom we will describe in a minute). Also, we read about an elderly woman who has gotten some kind of invitation. We have no idea who this is or what it is about till the very end. Now, let’s meet these leading ladies.

Vianne is a daughter, a mother, a wife, a sister, a best friend, and a school teacher. She lives in a quiet town out in the countryside of France. She teaches school with her best friend Rachel. Vianne has a daughter, Sophie, and a husband, Antoine, who has been sent off to fight in the war. Her small quiet town is being taken over by the Nazis. Vianne inherited a very nice home in this town and a German soldier has been assigned to live in her home with her and Sophie.

Let’s pause and learn a little about Isabelle shall we? Vianne and Isabelle have a pretty big age difference, so while both girls were abandoned by their father, Vianne (being the older sister) fell in love and got married while Isabelle continued moving from one boarding school to another. Isabelle was back at her father’s flat with him when he sent her out of Paris to go live with her sister in the country. On the journey to her sister’s house Isabelle meets Gaetan. She immediately falls head over heels in love with this man, but once he delivers her to Vianne’s house he disappears. On the entire walk to Vianne’s house Gaetan kept talking about how he wasn’t doing enough for the war. He needed to do more. Well, Isabelle felt the same. While living in the country side, she was in charge of going and getting the scraps of food that she was allowed with her rations. It wasn’t a surprise that she was less than cooperative when the German soldier showed up to live there with them. It also wasn’t a huge surprise when she started helping a group of people secretly put up posters all over town showing how much they were against the war.

Now…the girl’s life with Beck (the German soldier) living with them. Let’s be honest, I would be really upset too if: #1. My husband was shipped off to a war, #2. The enemy forced their way into my town, and #3. I had to have a soldier live in my home with me, my sister and my daughter. No thank you! Yet, Vianne did it. She kept her distance, she was polite. Isabelle was not so much, again not surprising. Beck happened to actually be a very nice German soldier. He found out where Antoine was, a POW, and was getting care packages to him from Vianne. Beck was even bringing home food and products that were no longer available. Things got worse, though, when the food ran out, the heat was gone and everyone was freezing.

Finally, Isabelle couldn’t take it anymore and joined the resistance. It started out simple enough, she would sneak around town and put up posters showing their opposition to the war. She wanted to do more and she was really good at it. The resistance group sent her to Paris. She came up with some lie to tell Vianne and headed back to her dad’s apartment. There she started doing a lot more, finally finding out what she was amazing at. She had so much drive and determination. She would help wounded pilots, that had been shot down form other countries, hike across the treacherous mountain range on the France and Spain boarder. It is here where she adopts the code name “The Nightingale”.

While Isabelle is helping the pilots, things escalate with Vianne. Beck made her tell him all the names of the jews in town and they have started not only firing them from their jobs but now they are being shipped off. Beck does give Vianne the time when to expect the raid for Rachel so that she can hide her. Before the raid happens, Rachel decides she needed to escape with her son Ari and her daughter Sarah across the boarder. They will find a way. Well while they are in line to cross, the German guard decides it would be fun to open fire on everyone waiting. Sarah becomes covered in bullet wounds. Racheal and Ari do not want her to die with the Germans so they rush her to the forest and poor Sarah dies. After that heart break, Vianne hides Racheal and Ari in her hidden cellar until they believe the raid is over. Unfortunately, they come out of hiding just a little too soon and Rachel is arrested. She has Vianne take Ari. Well, taking a jewish child into your house is dangerous enough but when you have a German soldier living with you its even more dangerous. Thankfully, Beck provides false papers for him and they change his name to Daniel.

Shortly after that, Isabelle finds a gunned down airman near Vianne’s town. She takes him and hides him in Vianne’s cellar. Regrettably, the Germans knew about this gunned down pilot and they sent Beck to go find the body. No one could find him, for obvious reasons. Well, a lot of pressure was put on Beck to find the body so he became a bit more angry. He started blaming Viannne (you need to know that Vianne doesn’t know Isabelle is there in the cellar). Beck finds the cellar and throws the doors open to discover Isabelle and the pilot. Gunshots were fired…Isabelle is hit. Beck collapses. Vianne has hit him and killed him. Gaetan comes and sneaks injured Isabelle away and nurses her back to health as they fall deeper and deeper in love.

Now, if that isn’t intense enough, Vianne is starting to be questioned because Beck has gone “missing”. She has also started taking in other jewish children and has started housing them at the church orphanage. She has now been hired by the church to be a teacher, which thankfully brings in a bit of an income but not much. It still isn’t helping enough because every winter they have less clothing, no heat and are still freezing. Sadly, a new German is assigned to Vianne’s home. The worst nazi you could imagine. He treats them horribly. They walk on eggshells around him. He is always just waiting for them to slip up on something. He has a feeling they are hiding something. YIKES!

Back in Paris Gaetan and Isabelle have gone their separate ways to stay safe and continue to do the most they can for the war. “The Nightingale” is making the Nazis extremely mad. They are hunting everywhere for who they think is a “him”. Boy were they wrong. Are you ready for a little bit of “light” now in this story? Ok, so Isabelle met up with her father, Julien, again. At first, he was angry, asking her what she was doing and finding out she was working with the resistance. To her surprise, the bitter, angry, drunk man she called a father was also working with the resistance. They had a very good heart to heart and he apologized for being less than a father to her and Vianne after their mother died. He also found out that she is “The Nightingale”! Filled with pride but also fear for his daughter, he questioned her knowledge on what would happen if she was ever caught. She is a very smart and brave girl. She knew.

Back with poor Vianne, who is not only freezing and trying to keep Sophie and Ari (Daniel) from freezing but the extremely cruel Nazi has now started raping her. Of course as the reader, it is so hard to keep an emotional distance as you go through so many feelings at one time; heartache for Vianne, anger at this Nazi and at this war, and pure frustration with Vianne for not taking the kids and running away.

Tragically, if you haven’t already guessed it, Isabelle is captured. She remembers that the rest of the resistance always told her, “if you are every caught just hold out for 2 days because It gives the rest of them enough time to get away”. She starts being tortured, beaten, tied up and starved. At one point, she is beaten unconscious and wakes up finding herself still tied up to a chair but she is naked and in the dark. Not only is it dark, it is freezing cold. She does what she can to feel around to find out where she is. They have locked her in a fridge. Well, Julien, the girl’s father, finds out that she has been captured to get information about “The Nightingale” so he turns himself in saying he is “The Nightingale” to save Isabelle. Julien is taken out and shot for everyone to see.

Isabelle is sent off to concentration camp. Vianne is still living a nightmare with a Nazi in her home.

FINALLY….

The war is starting to end. The soldiers move out of the country and Antoine comes home, but not quick enough. Vianne is pregnant. Thankfully, Antoine’s return home was so soon after that she is able to say it’s his. I think he knows it’s not, but he doesn’t question her. He sees how horrible things got and the horrors they lived through. The children that she saved are being sent to live with relatives. Sadly, Daniel is taken away from her to go live with a family in America. She once again is heartbroken and something else precious has been taken away from her.

The concentration camps have been let out and Isabelle finds her way to Vianne. Isabelle has barley made it. She is skin and bones. She has no hair. Her face is sunken in, her skin is dead and grey looking. She is so weak she sleeps all the time. She has gone with out food for so long she can no longer keep anything down, not even broth.

Then, all of a sudden Gaetan shows up!!!! He has found Isabelle, his love. She is so overcome by love and emotions her body can not take it. Sweet, selfless, brave Isabelle takes her last breath in his arms.

We then switch back to the mystery story of the old lady, who has received an invitation to something in France. Her son keeps questioning her and she is so vague and is keeping everything a secret from him. We have pieced together, though, that it has to be Vianne. She, out of no where, decides she has to go. She buys a plane ticket and heads to the airport. Well, her over protective son, Julien, meets her at the airport. She is doing everything she can to avoid any questions on what this invitation is for or her past. They arrive at a banquet, Julien is still very confused as he hears the person on stage talking about a woman who personally saved a large number of men from becoming POW’s. Next, his mother is asked to go say a few words. Vianne does amazing at speaking about the wonders of her sister Isabelle. She finishes her speech and knows that it is finally time to tell Julian her story. Before she tells him though, she sees an older man whom she could identify anywhere. Vianne and Gaetan share a sad reunion. We learn that Gaetan has a daughter who he named Isabelle.

Right when we think it’s time for her to tell Julien her story, a young man arrives near her. Ari (Daniel), he has found her! He has been searching for her his whole life. Even though his distant relatives raised him, he always remembered her and considered her his mother.

WOW! I don’t know about you but I’m emotional just typing this.

Vianne finally tells Julien her story about Rachel, Sarah, Ari, Isabelle and all the other horrors and heartbreak she survived, but like any mother who loves her child she made sure to never let the secret of who Julien’s biological father was.

As I said before, this is a story about some amazingly courageous and wonderful women. It is extremely sad and heart breaking. It is one of the most powerful books. The love you can still have and show in the worst of times. The love you can have for strangers. The love you can have to all children. This is a story that anyone who reads will carry with them everywhere. It’s not a story you take lightly. It is a story you use to reflect on your life and the way you are as a human.

The next book review will be on “Before We were Yours” by Lisa Wingate

I can not promise it is a feel good read. I can promise it ends well and yes you will need tissues for this book too!

Go read and enjoy!

Till the next mess,

Dana