Spoiler-Free Review

Coming at you live with tears on my cheeks, I’m recommending The Nightingale.

Click here for content warnings.

What’s The Nightingale about?

Sisters Vianne and Isabelle must must survive the German occupation of France; Isabelle wants to be a war heroine, Vianne just wants to protect her daughter. And then a German officer billets at their home.

This is impeccable storytelling.

“Women get on with it. For us it was a shadow war. There were no parades for us when it was over, no medals or mentions in history books. We did what we had to during the war, and when it was over, we picked up the pieces and started our lives over.”

One of the characters in this novel is based on the real life Andrée de Jongh, who I can’t believe I knew nothing about before this. De Jongh was a young woman who ferried over 118 downed airmen and others out of occupied Belgium, through occupied France, and over the Pyrenees mountains into freedom – and she did this up to 24 times. That’s a distance of 500+ miles on foot. It’s an incredible feat of heroism, and I’m glad The Nightingale brought it to my attention.

When I picked it up, one of the first thing that stood out to me was the writing style. It sucked me in from the first pages because of how visceral everything was – the smells, the temperature, the emotions, the visuals. Everything feels invasive, whether it’s the bodies crammed together during the mass exodus from Paris or the unmoving air from inside a car with the windows all the way up or the smell of urine in a locked space. Everything felt close, stale, overwhelming.

This book also asks some uncomfortable questions. The characters are often infuriating yet admirable, frustrating yet understandable. From chapter to chapter, I would flip between finding them wrong or right. They are the embodiment of the theme that asks, “Would I be like that? If it came down to it, what could I actually be forced to do?” Their feelings and actions were complicated at every turn.

By the end, I had felt every emotion. War had devastated so much of their lives and changed them so completely that looking back at the beginning was really like reading about completely different people.

Should you read The Nightingale?

If you enjoy historical fiction based on true events, read this book. I also recommend it if you like war stories that take place away from the front line and focus on a specific niche of the war that doesn’t often get a spotlight.