I went into this book cautiously. It had come highly recommended, but I had read other works by Kristin Hannah (namely, The Four Winds and Winter Garden) and had been left feeling slightly underwhelmed. Suffice it to say, the recommendation was well worth the risk.
It’s France, 1939, and rumours of increasing conflict are sweeping through the small town of Carriveau (not a real place, I checked) as Vianne waves goodbye to her husband, Antoine, who’s heading to the front. In another part of the country, her sister Isabelle is being expelled from yet another finishing school. The sisters are not only separated by 16 years, but also their polar opposite personalities, a gulf that had been widening since the death of their mother. Their differences also manifest in their outlook on the war. Vianne wants to keep her head down, to protect her daughter Sophie and stay alive; Isabelle is desperate for a purpose, a way to show that the French have not been defeated. As the sisters navigate the reality of an occupied France, they grow in ways neither would have expected.
I need to start by talking about the writing style. The characters’ voices are incredibly strong, which pulled me into the story from the first chapter. There wasn’t a day that went by where I didn’t think of them, wondering what would happen next in their lives. I’m ashamed to say, as someone who loves reading about women, that I don’t have high expectations going into their stories. Maybe it’s because I do, to my core, love a chick-lit read and so have associated female tales with that light, casual tone. Whatever it may be, I’m struck by novels that focus on women with a tone of gravitas worthy of them (The Marriage Portrait comes to mind), and I think Hannah does that beautifully.
As is true for any novel centered around war, the horrors of the event are not absent from the pages. My heart felt broken anew at the visceral reality of the brutalities of man. But within the loss of humanity there is hope; within oppression there is resistance.
On my Kindle, there’s a little bar at the bottom that says how much time the next chapter should take to read. One Wednesday night, I thought I’d read the next, little 10-minute chapter and then go to bed. Almost two hours later at 12:30am, I put the Kindle down, the book finished and my pillow damp from the tears that blurred my vision for the last 50 pages. It was sad, it was redeeming, it was powerful, it was heartbreaking. It was a great book.
2% Rating: 9/10
Recommend? Definitely
Re-Read? Hopefully
Time: 1:46