The Nightingale

by Kristin Hannah

Genre: Historical Fiction

Published: 2015

Rating: ★★★★★

Storykeeper’s Verdict: A Story Worth Keeping

Some books entertain you. Some make you think. And then there are the books that absolutely break your heart and somehow make you grateful that you read them anyway.

The Nightingale was that book for me.

This is easily one of my favorite books of all time and also one of the most emotionally devastating books I’ve ever read. I finished it heartbroken, angry, grateful, and completely in awe of the women who inspired this story.

Set in Nazi-occupied France during World War II, The Nightingale follows two sisters who experience the war very differently. Vianne is forced to survive occupation at home while trying to protect her family, while Isabelle refuses to stand quietly by and becomes involved in the resistance. Their choices look different. Their courage looks different. But both women are fighting their own wars. I think that’s one of the things I loved most about this book.

We often picture courage as something loud and heroic, you know, the kind that gets written about in history books. But sometimes courage is simply surviving another day. Sometimes it’s protecting your child. Sometimes it’s making an impossible choice because every option in front of you is terrible. And sometimes it’s looking directly at something terrifying and deciding you’re going to fight anyway.

But what took this book from a story I loved to a story I will probably never forget was learning how much research and real history lived behind it.

Kristin Hannah spent more than two years researching and writing The Nightingale. During her research, she discovered the story of Andrée de Jongh, a young Belgian woman who helped create an escape route for Allied airmen out of Nazi-occupied territory. Her courage became an inspiration for Isabelle—but Hannah didn’t stop with one woman’s story. Her research led her to countless stories of women who became spies and couriers, rescued downed airmen, hid Jewish children, and put themselves and their families in extraordinary danger to save others.

Knowing that changed the way I experienced this book. Vianne and Isabelle may be fictional characters, but what they represent wasn’t fictional.

Women endured unimaginable loss. Women protected their families while their homes and countries were occupied. Women joined resistance movements. They carried messages, hid people, helped others escape, and put their own lives in danger. So many of their stories never received the recognition they deserved.

There were moments while reading The Nightingale when I felt genuine anger at what these women endured, followed almost immediately by awe at what human beings are capable of surviving. And knowing that Hannah used real history and real women’s experiences as inspiration made my experience reading this book even more incredible and more emotional.

The Nightingale hurt to read. There is grief in this book. There is cruelty. There is tremendous loss. There were moments when I desperately wanted the story to give these characters a break, knowing full well that history didn’t give the real people living through this war one either. There was even a moment where my husband walked in the room and caught me crying so hard I could barely breathe after I had read a devastating part of the book. Awkward for sure.

So, I didn’t close The Nightingale thinking, “That was a great book.” I closed it thinking about the women. I closed it hating humanity but also in awe of it.

I kept thinking about this long after the book was back on the shelf. Actually, I still think about it.

If you love historical fiction, I cannot recommend The Nightingale enough.

Just know that I am recommending it while simultaneously apologizing for what it’s probably going to do to your heart.

Content note: The Nightingale depicts war, Nazi occupation, violence, death, sexual violence, grief, and other difficult experiences associated with World War II.

Have you read The Nightingale? I’d love to know what you thought. Did it break your heart too? Pull up a chair and tell me about it below.

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