Month: December 2018

3.5 Stars. I didn’t hate it and I didn’t love it, but I’d probably recommend it.
I have a lot of thoughts about this book. Sometimes beautifully written and heart wrenching, sometimes disappointingly modern for historical fiction.

The romance between Gaëtan and Isabelle was tacky and unrealistic. The romance between Antoine and Vianne was wholesome and real. The character development of Julien (father) and Vianne was relatable and interesting; it was so thrilling to watch them BECOME! Whereas Isabelle was a impetuous little brat one day and a national hero the next, all on a whim (?).

Ok, it’s becoming obvious that I disliked Isabelle’s character, not because of her hubris but because of how terribly she was written. It was like Hannah was trying too hard to avoid the ‘Mary Sue’ trope. C’mon really? There were so many opportunities to make this a wonderful piece of literature (aka not so wishy-washy). Isabelle, as a Mary Sue, undermines the real life accomplishments that brave, talented, hard working men and women strove for during this point in history. Andrée de Jongh, the inspiration for Isabelle’s character, was a selfless, humble, serviceable woman keen on aiding the Allies, I doubt she grew up a rash youth like Isabelle.

Excellent research Hannah, but some of the interpretation was lacking. The supporting characters were amazing and beautifully developed, they could have easily been written to help Isabelle become more of an Andrée-like character. It would have been easy to capitalize on more of Isabelle’s flaws and how, through team work, she overcame them.

The way the characters spoke just wasn’t…FRENCH… They used modern American colloquialisms and sentence structure was not reflective of how the French speak (there’s a lot of passive voice in French AND it’s totally acceptable). The only dialogue that comes close to French mannerisms is whenever Sophie opened her wise, childish mouth, and she just sounded pretentious compared to all the other characters (also how did she go from 6-14 during the war but Ari/Dan went from newborn to 5????? And he was still a little baby at 3 and wearing diapers? I have a niece who is 3 and carries on conversations in full comprehensible sentences and hasn’t worn a diaper for at least a year, does Hannah not know how children work?).

The historical aspects of the war etc are dead on for this genre and very well researched. BUT I cannot get over the fact that the author had never even been to France before her first draft was completed.
As I said before, I go back and forth with this book. I don’t regret the read, but I saw a potential that wasn’t grasped.