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Historical Fiction

Fiction in Review: Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave

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Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave | Inkwells & Images

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! 

Fiction in Review: The Paris Wife by Paula McLain

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The Paris Wife by Paula McLain | Inkwells & Images

I’m 100% behind the curve in reading The Paris Wife by Paula McLain.

I had the opportunity to hear Paula speak at the Madison Public Library a few weeks ago. I’d never heard of her work, and never read her books, but I was volunteering to help run her talk and signing – and I am so glad I did! Her words about writing during the margins in a busy season of life were so encouraging to someone who feels like they are just plodding through their first novel. Paula was funny and engaging and so very concerned with capturing the voices of women who haven’t been heard by history.

The Paris Wife is told from the perspective of Hadley Richardson, Ernest Hemingway’s first wife. Knowing that she is his first – and knowing that he had many – I was curious how reading a novel that I already knew the ending to would go. Would I care about the characters? Would I like them? Well, I did, wholeheartedly. I could not help rooting for Hadley and her marriage and for Hemingway to pull his head out of the sand (spoiler: he doesn’t, but you knew that, didn’t you?). I sobbed for Hadley when the time came. She owned her own story, even when she didn’t have much of a chance. And I loved her for it.

Favorite Quotes from The Paris Wife:

“I wasn’t reading the pages then, but I trusted his feeling about them and trusted the rhythm of every day.” – p. X

“I was tired of being sensible.” – p. 14

“My life was my life; I would have to stare it down, somehow, and make it work for me.” – p. 21

“Ernest and Nick weren’t the same guy, but they knew a lot of the same things.” – p. 128

“It’s like someone has taken a broom to his insides and swept them out until everything’s clean and bright and hard and empty.” – p. 135

” ‘ When does it mean something? When everyone finally gets smashed to bits?’ ” – p. 145

” ‘ I’m trying to want this.’ ” – p. 154

“That laugh would eventually set off a series of events, but not yet. It just stood there in the room, tipping and tipping, but not falling. Not falling yet. Not quite.” – p. 199

“Her edges were already blurred when she stood to shake our hands, and she looked as if she cultivated that – a fine blurriness.” – p. 203

“I want things to make sense again. They haven’t in a long time.” – p. 212

“I couldn’t be new.” – p. 242

What made this a good story?

This novel captured the feel of 1920s Paris – the pace and the places and the people. It handled gently the time in history when people had to idea how to move forward, still reeling from what they has seen in the great war. It gives you a view into the lives of artists like Hemingway and Ezra Pound and F. Scott Fitzgerald, but from the perspective of a young woman yearning for wholeness, not more excess.

If you like historical fiction and memoir, if you like rooting for the character telling the story, and if you like to see strong women make their own decisions – this is a novel you should read as soon as possible.

I can’t wait to dive into Paula McLain’s newest novel, Circling the Sun, about Beryl Markham and her life in Africa.

Have you read The Paris Wife by Paula McLain? What did you think?

P.S. Like this book? I recommend The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman OR The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert.