Fiction in Review: Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave

I almost always love a historical novel set during World War II, and Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave was no exception.

The novel focuses on a group of young people, in their early- to mid-twenties in London: Mary, an affluent eighteen-year-old who wants to do anything her parents won’t approve of; Tom, a school administrator who truly loves education; and Alistair, a museum employee who restores art – at least, until he enlists. The story follows these three as they learn about love, survival and sorrow amid a London in shambles and a blockaded island of Malta.

This novel has all the ingredients of a great WWII novel: a love story, a society that doesn’t know what the rank and file is anymore, and people stepping outside of themselves to be more. Unusually, it is also a novel that confronts poverty and injustice, and does so in a way that feels genuine.

My Favorite Quotes from Everyone Brave is Forgiven:

“She hated being eighteen. The insights and indignations burned through one’s good sense like hot coals through oven gloves.”

“They were only human, even if they hadn’t yet made the effort to become tall… the only different between children and adults was that children were prepared to put twice the energy into the project of not being sad.”

“The first problem of war what that no one was any good at it yet.”

“She supposed she must be in love. That [he] was slightly infuriating, and that she didn’t mind in the slightest, might be proof of it.”

“If the task had been, say, to rebuild Europe rather than to blast it to pieces, Alistair might have worn his rank with more pleasure and felt less bashful about asking the men to follow him.”

“It occurred to him that no one who hadn’t been in battle could know what things were worth.”

“Why should one expect to feel the same every day, in a world that was rearranging itself by the hour?”

“After the war of course it will be like the start of spring, which is always so brilliantly sudden.”

Should you read this novel? If you found yourself heartbroken after finishing All The Light We Cannot See, then yes. And if novels like The Book Thief and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society are your genre, definitely read this one.

Everyone Brave is Forgiven is a moving picture of war-torn London, filled with imperfect characters who are just trying to be brave and be forgiven.

Have you read Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave? What other historical novels would you recommend? I’m always open to suggestions!