Name: The Nightingale / Το αηδόνι
ISBN: 9789604616893

Kristin Hannah

The Nightingale / Το αηδόνι

Natalie 

Nour

In love we find out who we want to be, in war we find out who we are.

Magic, to be its best, must be unexpected.

"We are all fragile, Isabelle. It’s the thing we learn in war."

Memories - even the best of them - faded.

Rosa Wellner

 She wanted to bottle how safe she felt in this moment, so she could drink of it later when loneliness and fear left her parched. 

“Why was it so easy for men in the world to do as they wanted and so difficult for woman” 

maría 🪻

En el amor descubrimos quiénes queremos ser, en la guerra descubrimos quiénes somos.

"I love you, Papa," she said it quietly, realizing how true it was, how true it had always been. Love had turned into loss and she'd pushed it away, but somehow, impossibly, a bit of that love had remained.

They think talking about a problem will solve it. I come from a quieter generation. We understand the value of forgetting, the lure of reinvention.

It makes it sound as if I misplaced my loved ones; perhaps i left them where they don't belong and then turned away, too confused to retrace my steps.

They are not lost. Nor are they in a better place. They are gone. As I approach the end of my years, I know that grief, like regret, settles into our DNA and remains forever a part of us.

Much needed reminder on a day when hate seems to have won. 

Emily Lucie

But love has to be stronger than hate, or there is no future for us.

Faith

As I approach the end of my years, I know the grief, like regret, settles into our DNA and remains forever a part of us.

I close my eyes and in the darkness, the smells of mildew and by gone lives, my mind casts back a line thrown across years and continents

The girls responded immediately and fell into step ahead of the women, chattering constantly, their heads cocked together, their hands clasped. A second generation of best friends.

"I think, as this war goes on, we will all have to look more deeply. These questions are not about them, but about us."

“Don't think about who they are. Think about who you are and what sacrifices you can live with and what will break you."

“Of course. Men always think war is about them.”

The Nightingale

Joana Mae

Five stars and a lot of tears! This book broke me… and I mean that in the best way. The Nightingale is one of those stories that slowly pulls you in, then completely wrecks you by the end. It’s heartbreaking, powerful, and so beautifully written. I loved how it showed different kinds of strength through the two sisters—both fighting their own battles in a war that changed everything. It’s not just about survival, but about courage, sacrifice, and the quiet ways people show love. There were so many moments that made me pause… and a lot that made me cry. Another five-star read from one of my favorite authors—and definitely one I won’t forget.

"From the #1 New York Times bestselling author comes Kristin Hannah's next novel. It is an epic love story and family drama set at the dawn of World War II. She is the author of twenty-one novels. Her previous novels include Home Front, Night Road, Firefly Lane, Fly Away, and Winter Garden"--

Michelle Dsouza

I went in with high expectations and came out having wasted seventeen hours. The history this book draws from is real and extraordinary. The women who ran escape lines through Nazi-occupied France, who moved Allied airmen across the Pyrenees at enormous personal risk, who were arrested and sent to camps and sometimes did not return, were women of documented, specific, extraordinary courage. A novel choosing to tell their story owed them the gravity they earned. This one assembled the clichés instead. There are so many genuinely great books written about this period that the laziness here is its own offense. Hannah did not try. She took every available shortcut and called it historical fiction. The central absurdity of the premise: your city is invaded by Nazis and your first instinct is to cry about some man that you loved you didn't love you back and abandoned you? That is the book. That is the whole book. The occupation of France is not the subject. It is the mood board. The writing is mediocre and the inconsistencies are not subtle. Isabelle distributes Resistance leaflets and steals a bicycle in knee-deep snow. Knee-deep snow leaves tracks. Tracks lead soldiers directly back to the people she is supposedly protecting. This is not a small oversight. It is the kind of basic logical gap that a careful writer, or a careful editor, closes before publication. This book has several of them and each one confirms that the research never went deeper than the surface. The village of Carriveau is small and rural and somehow contains Nazis, SS officers, Gestapo, and a and entire networked train system that appears wherever the plot requires one. This is not world-building. This is a writer placing whatever she needs in whatever location the scene demands and hoping the reader does not notice. Days after Vianne is assaulted, her husband conveniently returns home and she is now pregnant. The timing is so narratively convenient it borders on contemptuous toward the reader. If you want to write a love story, write a love story. Do not drag the trauma of war into it as a plot device and call it brave storytelling. The prose itself does not compensate for any of this. It is functional at best, reaching for emotional weight through repetition and sentiment rather than through specificity or genuine observation. The dialogue is flat. There are no sentences here that stay with you. There is no moment of writing that earns its place through genuine skill. The suggestion that what a woman needed to survive Nazi occupation was a beautiful face and a body men wanted is not historical looseness. It is offensive. It is beyond comprehension that anyone has the nerve to romanticize war. The people who lived through Nazi occupation deserve to have their reality told with honesty, not dressed up in a love story because honest history is apparently less sellable. The real women who inspired Isabelle earned legacies of genuine historical weight. This novel closes by reducing them to women in love. It is not a tribute. It is a reduction, and it is the most telling thing about what this book actually values.That this passed through an editorial process and was celebrated is its own conversation. One star. Absolutely not.

The Nightingale: A Novel

“Men tell stories. 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.”

An absolute gut-punch of a book and the crowning jewel of historical fiction. If you’re looking to cry and cheer in equal measure for 500+ pages, this is the book for you. 

I love a book that, while reminds us of our tragic history, does not fail to show the cracks of light in the darkness—the courage and hope and love that cannot be snuffed out by cruelty or injustice no matter how hard some try.

Catherine

“Men tell stories. 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.”

An absolute gut-punch of a book and the crowning jewel of historical fiction. If you’re looking to cry and cheer in equal measure for 500+ pages, this is the book for you. 

I love a book that, while reminds us of our tragic history, does not fail to show the cracks of light in the darkness—the courage and hope and love that cannot be snuffed out by cruelty or injustice no matter how hard some try.

Heart breaking book that came very close to making me cry more than once. Insightful into the role of women and the horrors they endure during war. Unsung heroines. 

Usman Merchant

My heart is just aching. This is such a tragic and beautiful story. I honestly am at a loss for words. 

Sofie I

Listened to the audiobook. Would have like it better if I read it myself. I enjoyed the perspective of both sisters. They had completely opposite experiences and strategies on how to go about surviving the war. Neither were wrong in the end. 

Hadley 

Listened to the audiobook. Would have like it better if I read it myself. I enjoyed the perspective of both sisters. They had completely opposite experiences and strategies on how to go about surviving the war. Neither were wrong in the end. 

I would recommend this book. 

Patsy Koss

Cassandra Tang

Elvia Iraheta 

What a lovely read. Insightful and thought provoking of the war. 

Joanna Tweedale

literally the best book I’ve ever read in my life I can’t stop thinking about it 

Amanda aguirre

In love we find out who we want to be. In war we find out who we are. FRANCE, 1939 In the quiet village of Carriveau, Vianne Mauriac says goodbye to her husband, Antoine, as he heads for the Front. She doesn't believe that the Nazis will invade France...but invade they do, in droves of marching soldiers, in caravans of trucks and tanks, in planes that fill the skies and drop bombs upon the innocent. When a German captain requisitions Vianne's home, she and her daughter must live with the enemy or lose everything. Without food or money or hope, as danger escalates all around them, she is forced to make one impossible choice after another to keep her family alive. Vianne's sister, Isabelle, is a rebellious eighteen-year-old girl, searching for purpose with all the reckless passion of youth. While thousands of Parisians march into the unknown terrors of war, she meets Gäetan, a partisan who believes the French can fight the Nazis from within France, and she falls in love as only the young can...completely. But when he betrays her, Isabelle joins the Resistance and never looks back, risking her life time and again to save others. With courage, grace and powerful insight, bestselling author Kristin Hannah captures the epic panorama of WWII and illuminates an intimate part of history seldom seen: the women's war. The Nightingale tells the stories of two sisters, separated by years and experience, by ideals, passion and circumstance, each embarking on her own dangerous path toward survival, love, and freedom in German-occupied, war-torn France--a heartbreakingly beautiful novel that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the durability of women. It is a novel for everyone, a novel for a lifetime.

A Novel

This is My Shayla!!!!!!!!!!!!! My 1st historical fiction book. No regrets! Will not be my last KH book because her writing was 👩‍🍳💋. The ending was perfect had me knees to chest on the floor! 

Leidy Ramirez

Kristin Hannah knocks it out of the park again. She does such a wonderful job pulling together a historical fiction novel. Those last few chapters were ones that kept your mind reeling as you tried to put the final pieces together, and tears were shed.

Amanda 

Wow. This had me on the edge of my seat the entire time. I loved the dual timeline/pov between the sisters. Their two different stories weaving the tale of WWII and just how different it can be from person to person. The ending blew me away and I honestly cannot imagine a single thing differently about it. Perfect. 

A heartwrenching, gripping tale of female influence during the second world war, where we follow Vianne and her younger and more irrational sister Isabelle through Nazi occupied France. 

Already having a strained relationship between the sisters and their fathers, Isabelle already knows she wants to have a greater impact for her country. Taking the code name of the nightingale, she goes on to recover over a hundred fighter pilots from the allied forces who are stranded in France after being fallen by german forces. Risking her own life and everything she loves, she continues, until she's captured, tortured and enslaved in a concentration camp. Her love story with Gaetan is tear worthy, with the ending of the book tearing my heart out repeatedly, then ripping it into hundreds of thousands of pieces. Killing her from a disease that was just a cumulation of all her difficulties was the twisted knife in the proverbial chest. I didnt even undestand how she died until I googled it. I could not believe it. And how her dad, a man who emotionally abandoned them to alcohol after the loss of their beloved mother and his wife, ends up giving his life for his daughter, giving himself up as the nightingle broke my heart again. 

Vianne is her older sister, who goes through so much so silently. She's riddled with guilt for being unusually close with the billet Nazi German, Captain Wolfgang Beck. Let me just rant about him for a second. He's so obviously a good man at heart. A man who cares about the suffering around him, who's so clearly a moral, religious man who' so disgusted with the Gestapo and the SS and their actions to the men, women and children around them. With the way these two were forced into such proximity, how Vianne was stripped of any of her martial relations with her MIA husband, Antoine (who's a sweatheart by the way), and how Captain Beck, a man with a loving wife and children at home, is also starved of similar love, it's so blatantly obvious that they'd feel some sort of romantic feelings between eachother, especially because he is one of the only gentle and emotive german officers in the entire police force. And then there's the fact that he looks out for Vianne, apologises to her, feels bad, shows empathy, shows his clear hatred of Hitler's actions, of Hitler's police force. When he died, my hands shook. A good man lost in a bad situation. It was so obvious that the end to their friendship and relationship where the lines were so heavily blurred was inevitable. It would either end in his or her death, and its so depressing to come to this realisation as you see the way he treats her, how he treats her kids, he compliments her food, he allows her to keep her home to herself, he takes the smallest room, he brings home wine and cheese and gifts her daughter chocolte. He brings her documents he knows aren't a hundred percent true and he was patient with Isabelle, who so obbviously had so much rage and angst and only felt she could inflict it on him. His death, as tragic as it was, was inevitable. Someone had to die before their relationship was no longer a blur, there was no longer a fine line and they would have ended up doing something stupid and irreversible. I don't even have enough space to explain how sorrowful I am for Vianne' experiences with her next Nazi. How he left her with a child of rape, who ultimately became an American surgeon. How he gave her so much pain and she never tells Antoine, never tells anyone except Sophie, who died herself of cancer later on. And when they take Ari from her? I flipping hated it. One child isn't going to change an entire demographic to grow. They traumatised the poor child so many times, he's now had three mothers, ttaking him from Rachel, then from Vianne, then to his Auntie had my heart aching so bad. The immense pain this women suffered silently was heartbreaking. She says at some point, that men tell their stories, whilst women just get on with it, and you can so clearly see that here.

This book was amazing. I'll never be the same. 

surtified™

A heartwrenching, gripping tale of female influence during the second world war, where we follow Vianne and her younger and more irrational sister Isabelle through Nazi occupied France. 

Already having a strained relationship between the sisters and their fathers, Isabelle already knows she wants to have a greater impact for her country. Taking the code name of the nightingale, she goes on to recover over a hundred fighter pilots from the allied forces who are stranded in France after being fallen by german forces. Risking her own life and everything she loves, she continues, until she's captured, tortured and enslaved in a concentration camp. Her love story with Gaetan is tear worthy, with the ending of the book tearing my heart out repeatedly, then ripping it into hundreds of thousands of pieces. Killing her from a disease that was just a cumulation of all her difficulties was the twisted knife in the proverbial chest. I didnt even undestand how she died until I googled it. I could not believe it. And how her dad, a man who emotionally abandoned them to alcohol after the loss of their beloved mother and his wife, ends up giving his life for his daughter, giving himself up as the nightingle broke my heart again. 

Vianne is her older sister, who goes through so much so silently. She's riddled with guilt for being unusually close with the billet Nazi German, Captain Wolfgang Beck. Let me just rant about him for a second. He's so obviously a good man at heart. A man who cares about the suffering around him, who's so clearly a moral, religious man who' so disgusted with the Gestapo and the SS and their actions to the men, women and children around them. With the way these two were forced into such proximity, how Vianne was stripped of any of her martial relations with her MIA husband, Antoine (who's a sweatheart by the way), and how Captain Beck, a man with a loving wife and children at home, is also starved of similar love, it's so blatantly obvious that they'd feel some sort of romantic feelings between eachother, especially because he is one of the only gentle and emotive german officers in the entire police force. And then there's the fact that he looks out for Vianne, apologises to her, feels bad, shows empathy, shows his clear hatred of Hitler's actions, of Hitler's police force. When he died, my hands shook. A good man lost in a bad situation. It was so obvious that the end to their friendship and relationship where the lines were so heavily blurred was inevitable. It would either end in his or her death, and its so depressing to come to this realisation as you see the way he treats her, how he treats her kids, he compliments her food, he allows her to keep her home to herself, he takes the smallest room, he brings home wine and cheese and gifts her daughter chocolte. He brings her documents he knows aren't a hundred percent true and he was patient with Isabelle, who so obbviously had so much rage and angst and only felt she could inflict it on him. His death, as tragic as it was, was inevitable. Someone had to die before their relationship was no longer a blur, there was no longer a fine line and they would have ended up doing something stupid and irreversible. I don't even have enough space to explain how sorrowful I am for Vianne' experiences with her next Nazi. How he left her with a child of rape, who ultimately became an American surgeon. How he gave her so much pain and she never tells Antoine, never tells anyone except Sophie, who died herself of cancer later on. And when they take Ari from her? I flipping hated it. One child isn't going to change an entire demographic to grow. They traumatised the poor child so many times, he's now had three mothers, ttaking him from Rachel, then from Vianne, then to his Auntie had my heart aching so bad. The immense pain this women suffered silently was heartbreaking. She says at some point, that men tell their stories, whilst women just get on with it, and you can so clearly see that here.

This book was amazing. I'll never be the same. 

The writing style is beautiful, but in contrast to the other two Kristin Hannah books I’ve read (The Great Alone & The Four Winds), this did not captivate me until there were only about 100 pages left. It made me cry and think, still, but it wasn’t one I felt compelled to keep picking up. 

Kristen Savage

hana

The whole book is amazing the last half I cried for almost the whole thing! Incredible story. 

Gina Crane 

This was one of the most beautifully written books I've ever read. This book hooked me right from the start. I don't read historical fiction often, but I had heard such amazing things about this book that I had to see for myself. It was so interesting reading from the perspective of women living through the Nazi invasion. The things they all had to go through were absolutely heartbreaking, but the way Isabelle and Vianne found their own ways to rebel was so powerful. You could tell Isabelle was going to get involved somehow but I was so proud of Vianne for helping all of those kids. I think some of the most heartbreaking parts of this book were the separation of Rachel's family and the unavoidable situations, like with Captain Beck. The best part of this book was the unforgettable relationships, including the friendships, sisterhood, and parenthood. 

Maggie Hotmer

I'm not typically drawn to WW2 historical fiction, but I got this book as a gift. It felt slow at times throughout, too focused on the mundane. I thought it could have been shaved down somewhat. It was enjoyable, but I didn't find it breathtaking like so many other readers, which absolutely could be because of my own preferences for historical fiction. I was going back and forth between 3.5 and 4 stars until I reached the ending. The ending itself was so well done that it changed my entire perspective of this novel. I do feel that I'll be thinking of it in the weeks to come. Overall, I am glad I read this book; it just fell short of a masterpiece in my opinion.

Amanda

• The father who went off to war was not the one who came home.

• She wanted to bottle how safe she felt in this moment, so she could drink of it later when loneliness and fear left her parched.

• What was love when put up against war?

• She felt as if her insides were a bomb that needed to go off. One wrong move—or word—and she might explode.

• Inside, the house echoed the voice of a man who wasn't there.

• Isabelle had always simply reacted in her life. Someone left her behind; she followed. Someone told her she couldn't do something; she did it. Every barrier she turned into a gate.

• "Why did you push me and Vianne away?" "I hope you never know how fragile you are, Isabelle."

• She knew about death, about the grief that ripped you apart and left you broken forever.

• I don't know the right thing to do anymore. I want to protect Sophie and keep her safe, but what good is safety if she has to grow up in a world where people disappear without a trace because they pray to a different God?

• This war has put us all where we do not want to be.

• He watched me stand on the sidelines of his life instead of showing him the field of my own.

• She wanted to say "Don't leave me," but she couldn't do it, not again. She was so tired of begging people to love her.

• He knows nothing about the kind of sacrifice that, once made, can never be either fully forgotten or fully borne. And how could he? I have protected him from all of that.

• How can I start at the beginning, when all Ican think about is the end?

• Every time she saw anyone these days, it was hard to say good-bye. You never knew if you'd see them again.

• Nothing felt right anymore. They were like strangers. He felt it, too. She knew he did. The war lay between them at night.

• She was so lucky to have found this man. No wonder she had fallen in love with him. And she would find her way back to him, just as he'd found his way back to her.

• "Kiss me," she whispered. "Make me forget." "It's not forgetting we need, Vianne," he said, leaning down to kiss her. "It's remembering."

• It felt both profoundly magical and beautifully ordinary. A moment from the life they'd had before.

• Don't forget me, Isabelle thought. She wished she had the strength to say it out loud.

• "I should have known she wasn't following a man, but her beliefs, that she was doing something important."

• I do my best to be my sister's ambassador, collecting the thanks she deserves.

• I know now what matters, and it is not what I have lost. It is my memories. Wounds heal. Love lasts. We remain.

Kath

• The father who went off to war was not the one who came home.

• She wanted to bottle how safe she felt in this moment, so she could drink of it later when loneliness and fear left her parched.

• What was love when put up against war?

• She felt as if her insides were a bomb that needed to go off. One wrong move—or word—and she might explode.

• Inside, the house echoed the voice of a man who wasn't there.

• Isabelle had always simply reacted in her life. Someone left her behind; she followed. Someone told her she couldn't do something; she did it. Every barrier she turned into a gate.

• "Why did you push me and Vianne away?" "I hope you never know how fragile you are, Isabelle."

• She knew about death, about the grief that ripped you apart and left you broken forever.

• I don't know the right thing to do anymore. I want to protect Sophie and keep her safe, but what good is safety if she has to grow up in a world where people disappear without a trace because they pray to a different God?

• She was so tired of being strong.

• This war has put us all where we do not want to be.

• He watched me stand on the sidelines of his life instead of showing him the field of my own.

• She wanted to say "Don't leave me," but she couldn't do it, not again. She was so tired of begging people to love her.

• He knows nothing about the kind of sacrifice that, once made, can never be either fully forgotten or fully borne. And how could he? I have protected him from all of that.

• How can I start at the beginning, when all Ican think about is the end?

• Every time she saw anyone these days, it was hard to say good-bye. You never knew if you'd see them again.

• Nothing felt right anymore. They were like strangers. He felt it, too. She knew he did. The war lay between them at night.

• She was so lucky to have found this man. No wonder she had fallen in love with him. And she would find her way back to him, just as he'd found his way back to her.

• "Kiss me," she whispered. "Make me forget." "It's not forgetting we need, Vianne," he said, leaning down to kiss her. "It's remembering."

• It felt both profoundly magical and beautifully ordinary. A moment from the life they'd had before.

• Don't forget me, Isabelle thought. She wished she had the strength to say it out loud.

• "I should have known she wasn't following a man, but her beliefs, that she was doing something important."

• I do my best to be my sister's ambassador, collecting the thanks she deserves.

• I know now what matters, and it is not what I have lost. It is my memories. Wounds heal. Love lasts. We remain.

Saketttt. That's all. 💔

Beautiful story of two sisters that live through the WWII, the decisions they have to make, the love they feel and how their characters evolve through the darkest of times. 

Liliana Acosta Alvarez

Heartbreaking and hopeful at the same time. Loved the different displays of strength by the female characters 