The Nightingale

"The Nightingale" by Kristin Hannah

Wow, this book was exceptional.  It's been a while since I've read a book I couldn't put down but this was it.  It is a large book, over 400 pages, but well worth the time.  I am now going to get my hands on every book this author has written.  This book takes place in France during the Nazi invasion.  It is a story of two women "fighting" the war the only way they know how.  It is about the everyday unsung heroines of World War I.  This book is historical fiction and keeps close to the facts of the war.  It follows two sisters, one whose husband is off to fight the war, and one who is young and fearless.  The sisters whose husband is gone to war is left with her daughter to raise alone as the Germans come in to her town and into her home.  The young fearless sister can not wait for war to find her, she must do something to help.  Both sisters show courage and bravery in unfathomable hardship.  It is inspiring, terribly sad and yet full of hope.  It leaves the reader wondering if they too have the courage to be ordinarily extraordinary.  "What was love when put up against war?"  "Vianne hated what she saw in her daughter's eyes right now.  There was nothing young in her gaze-no innocence, no naivete, no hope.  Not even grief.  Just anger."  The children did not have the luxury to be children during war.  Such harsh things they were experiencing at so young.  "She knew now that no one could be neutral-not anymore-and as afraid as she was of risking Sophie's life, she was suddenly more afraid of letting her daughter grow up in a world where good people did nothing to stop evil, where a good woman could turn her back on a friend in need."  I may not live in war time but I too am afraid of my girls growing up in a world where good people do nothing.  I am trying to teach them that when we see someone in need, no matter how big or small, we can choose to do something.  I want them to see me choosing to do something about the things that break my heart so they will learn that they are capable of helping, always.  "But love has to be stronger than hate, or there is no future for us."  This, this is what we need to remember.  Love does win, it always has and it always will.  "You know what I learned in the camps?  They couldn't touch my heart.  They couldn't change who I was inside.  My body...they broke that in the first days, but not my heart...". So powerful.  And I think that that is how some people survived the camps, because they didn't allow their hearts to be hardened by the evil around them.  "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."  The women that were left behind fought the war in many ways.  They did what they had to do to survive and when it was over, they went on as best as they knew how.  I highly recommend this book.  It is well worth reading.                                                                                                                                                              

Man's Search for Meaning

"Man's Search for Meaning" by Viktor E. Frankl

This is an old book, one many have read.  It is a powerful book of a man in a holocaust concentration camp who survives only by the hope he carries.  He tells of the atrocious things that happened and how those who survived did so by holding on to hope.  He goes on to write that if man has no meaning he will have no reason for living and such not make it through hardships.  Viktor became, and actually was prior to the war, a psychiatrist.  He helped many people find meaning so that they could overcome.  He goes on to say that in suffering, if we find the meaning, how it will make us stronger and what we can learn from it we can be overcomers. "Disgust, horror and pity are emotions that our spectator could not really feel any more.  The sufferers, the dying and the dead, became such commonplace sights to him after a few weeks of camp life that they could not move him any more."  The prisoners became numb, there was too much suffering and wrongdoing that their brains just could not comprehend and so the emotions get cut off for survival sake.  "When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task; his single and unique task.  He will have to acknowledge the fact that even in suffering his is unique and alone in the universe.  No one can relieve him of his suffering or suffer in his place.  His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burdens."  How we bear our burdens is the biggest part to this life.  We all have them, we all deal with them differently, but our character shows through in these burdens and who we believe to be in control.  "In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of sacrifice."  A good book on finding meaning in our suffering and gaining perspective.  The end gets very technical, as he goes into the psychology of what he leaned but I did throughly enjoy the first part about his experience in the concentration camp.  

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

"The Boy in the Striped Pajamas" by John Boyne

This is a book I have been wanting to read for a long time. I haven't seen the movie but that is when I became interested in the book. Truthfully I was a little disappointed in the book but just because I thought the writing was a little juvenile. The book is written from the perspective of a little boy. The little boy's father is a soldier and is in charge of a concentration camp. The little boy is clueless to this fact and befriends a boy from the other side of the fence. The book's message I would say is how often times we are oblivious to the things that are going on around us, things are what they are because they have always been. We don't ask questions and because of this change doesn't happen. I won't give away the ending but it is sad and shocking but not surprising.  Now I am curious to see the movie.  Good book, not great but it does get you thinking.