The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

Our book club wanted a lighter read for the summer, so we decided on The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. I've read some Hannah before and I've always known her as a contemporary romance novelist, so I was interested in all the hype on this WWII historical fiction novel.

Look, this wasn't the most popular book we've ever read for our book club.  We liked that it showed what it was like in France for non-Nazi, non-Jewish citizens, which we determined was an under explored area of WWII literature, but other than that we pretty much decided All the Light You Cannot See (which we also read in book club, but I oddly didn't write about here) was probably better in terms of weaving in historical details and overall emotional impact.

But.  This book kind of grew on me. I didn't love it and spent the first 140 pages whining about how horrible the characters and writing were, but then the plot picked up and I thought the characters really redeemed themselves. Some members of our book club claimed that they teared up at the end, but maybe I'm a robot, but I definitely did not cry.  But maybe you would.

So this isn't a slam dunk, but if you hang in there, it does get better at the end.