The Nightingale - A Tale of Two Perspectives

*This Review Contains Spoilers*

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Three out of Five Stars

The Nightingale, by Kristin Hannah, was a book I had to read for summer reading, so this book was not a book that I picked out voluntarily. Anyway, this book was about Isabelle and Vianne, who are polar opposites and personalities I will dive into later. Anyway, these two sisters are supposedly ten years apart and were sent to live with this lady called Madame "Doom" after their alcoholic and traumatized by the war father dropped them off because their mother died in Carriveau, France. Vianne, before the war, met a man named Antonine who, after several failed miscarriages, was able to get pregnant and give birth to a daughter named Sophie. On the other hand, Isabelle has spent her time before the war going to different boarding schools and getting kicked out of them. Another note that should be taken is that the book begins and ends with Vianne going to Paris to attend a conference to celebrate the lives her sister saved.

However, things change during the war. Antonine is sent away to fight for France in the war, and Vianne is left to care for Sophie with her teacher's salary. Soon, Isabelle gets kicked out of yet another school and is sent to live with her sister. On her journey from Paris to Carriveau, she meets a man named Gäeten, who comes in and out of the novel and is ultimately Isabelle's lover. Soon after Isabelle arrives, the sister's clashing personalities make the household tense. Then after this, a Nazi officer comes to billet with them. 

Throughout this novel, Isabelle has a lot of coming and going, who eventually decides to leave Carriveau and go work for the Resistance against the Nazis. It first starts out as delivering secret messages and soon leads fallen airmen from the Allies to Spain on a route called the Nightingale. She works with the Resistance for few years before being sent to a concentration camp as a political prisoner. Her father then confesses to the Nazis that he was actually the Nightingale to sacrifice how bad he treated her and Vianne. On the other hand, Vianne is very submissive to the allies but soon changes when she kills the first Nazi officer to live with her for hiding an airman in her barn's cellar. She then takes in Ari, her Jewish best friend's son, and forges papers about him being named Daniel. She also helps transfer Jewish children to go live in a convent's orphanage. 

As I said in the beginning, the novel ends with a conference in celebration of the lives Isabelle saved. It is told from Vianne's perspective. It is revealed that Isabelle died from complications after returning from the concentration camp, and Sophie died from cancer. 

My first note in this novel is about the sisters. I feel Isabelle and Vianne accurately represent people during World War II, especially at the beginning of the book. The first type of person is someone who just wants to stay alive. They are aware of the immoral things happening within the world, but they remain quiet and submissive to save themselves. This person was obviously Vianne, but only at the beginning of the novel. Instead, she became more like her sister, who recognized this injustice and wanted to do something about it. I am glad this novel offered both perspectives rather than just one. 

Also, the way the offer switched from first to third-person perspective was done smoothly. I also thought it was interesting how Vianne's perspective was told in the third person despite other chapters being related in the first person. I like to believe this is because before and during the war, Vianne is an entirely different person than after the war. Hannah could have done this unintentionally, but I like to think it was an artistic choice. 

The overall theme of this novel was love, but I felt it only came out through the end when Isabelle's and Vianne's father sacrificed his life. I felt this could have been more heavily mentioned throughout the novel, but it was not, which I found disappointing. Where was this emphasis when Vianne took Ari/Daniel as her son? When were there more scenes when Vianne cared for the children in the orphanage? When was this emphasis when Isabelle led those airmen across the mountain? If the theme centered on a love for humanity rather than family, there would be a stronger theme. 

My final note about this book. There were a lot of careless errors, which were distracting. This mainly had to do with the ages that keep being messed up along with many plot holes. I can think of the scene when Vianne mentions a dark time she went through when she was seventeen and then says her four-year-old sister. I thought they were ten years apart. Another part that was confusing was the amount of money these people had. Before the war, they were mentioned as poor and going off a postal and teacher's salary, yet they lived and maintained a massive mansion. As everyone else did, they became poorer and poorer throughout the war. Unable to find proper clothing yet near the end of the novel, Vianne can hop on a train. And did I mention she did not have the papers to do that? 

I rated this book three stars. I usually rate excellent books (not ones that changed my life) four stars, and this was honestly a superb book. However, I had to tick it down to three stars due to careless errors.

*This Review Contains Spoilers*

- Read More Book Reviews and Follow my Goodreads Account: Maggie Rhoads -

Three out of Five Stars