Book Review: The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

I’m a sucker for WW2 novels, so I wolfed down The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah, but it’s definitely not perfect. There were inconsistencies and unrealistic events (like occasionally forgetting to age characters appropriately or having a beautiful meal seasoned with lemon and garnished with fresh herbs in the middle of war-time rationed France). But I found it easy to suspend belief and enjoy the story. I don’t think this story is for anyone who wants a hyperrealistic perspective of WW2. It’s historical fiction with an emphasis on fiction. Seriously, don’t factcheck this novel or pay too much attention to the details (the author didn’t), because it will probably make you angry. It didn’t necessarily feel authentic to the time period, but as fiction, I downed this book. The prose is accessible and sufficiently flowy, but the writing isn’t particularly beautiful.

I thought the heroics of Isabella were overplayed and the hesitance of Vianne overemphasized, overly polarizing their different personalities. And it was a tad annoying at times. Isabella was too saccharinely perfect but also too inconsiderate for me, so I was more drawn to Vianne’s storyline. I also thought that Isabella’s story was a type of bold heroism that is typically told in fictionalized accounts, namely in YA novels or its adjacent popular adult historical fiction, whereas Vianne’s was a bit more rare. In fact, Isabella was modeled after the real person Andrée de Jongh, and I think I’d rather read a biography on her. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t dislike Isabella or her storyline, and I think it’s important to bring awareness to de Jongh’s heroic actions even if it’s through fictionalized Isabella, but Isabella just didn’t read as anything special in the historical fiction space. Her character never really went beyond the beautiful, impulsive girl turned hero trope (whose only weapon seemed to be her beauty, so serious eye roll there), which is a shame since she was modeled after a real person. I might have liked her character more if her sisterly relationship with Vianne was stronger and her romance not insta love. 

Vianne’s chapters were the highlight for me, especially the ones with Captain Beck in them, since I thought he was the most nuanced character in the novel. He was a Wehrmacht officer, horrified by what his country was doing and wondering if his family at home would think him a monster once he got home, and ultimately a decent man on the wrong side of a war. I felt the chemistry between him and Vianne, and I had to confront the wrongness of it just as they did. 

Vianne was more realistic to me than the caricature of Isabella, and although she did annoy me at times because the author was so focused on making her the polar opposite of Isabella, Vianne is the only sister that escaped becoming a contrived extreme. I think the only thing that saved her from just being a comparator character for Isabella were the other people reliant upon her, like her children. I’m also a sucker for people whose first priority is taking care of children, so perhaps that is another reason why I enjoyed Vianne’s chapters, who had to take care of her own child and then rescued multiple Jewish children in her area. 

The ending of the book was incredibly melodramatic, so while it made me effectively sad, it wasn’t an overflow of an emotion. While this is more of a chick flick version of history, Vianne definitely saved the book, and I read it in one or two sittings while I was craving relatively light storytelling (just to be clear, I’m calling the writing light, not the subject matter since WW2 is definitely a heavy topic). It was an engrossing read if not a technically well-written or researched one.