August Book Club Pick - The Nightingale

One of my bucket list items for this year was to start a book club. I found a group of ladies who are also really into reading and we all decided to give it a go! We’ve been on a great cadence and it’s going really well so far.

Our Book Club

The thing that I love most about our book club, is that each person gets to pick a book that the club will read for the month in a rotation. So we get to read things we may not have chosen for ourselves, and it’s such a wonderful adventure to read new genres or learn something new. We meet once a month to discuss our book, and the conversations have been so amazing. Often times I finish reading a book and can’t stop thinking about it, so it’s great to have a group of friends to talk to about it.

The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah

This month’s book was The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. It’s a historical fiction novel about two sisters living through the German occupation of France during World War II. While the men, and Vianne’s husband, are off fighting in the war, she and her little sister, Isabelle, are faced with challenges of their own. Although sisters, they both react very differently to their circumstances and showcase their bravery in their own ways. Isabelle is a young girl desperate for love and has an even more fierce desire to fight back. And Vianne is a mother and wife who’s quiet strength protects her family no matter the cost. It’s a beautifully written and heart-wrenching story that depicts another side of WWII.

We met for coffee at Prairie House Coffee Co. which is a cute little restored house in Oakland, Florida attached to a floral and gift shop.

It has a great outdoor seating area. We opted for sitting indoors, though, since it’s so hot out.

After we got our coffees, I handed out the questions. I like to provide print-outs so that anyone can start a conversation or ask a question and it’s a great resource for us to recall different parts of the book.

The conversations are my favorite part! Everyone has different insights and opinions to share. And some of the parts of the book that I was unsettled about or stuck with me, we got to hash out and share our thoughts, and I felt like I got some closure. I love these ladies!

I found some great questions for this book club, but there was so much to talk about and say that our conversation really flowed so naturally. As we started getting into the convo, I chose to read the last question first. And that just spiraled all of us to talk about all the emotional parts of the novel that hit us at our core. I posted our questions below.

The Nightingale Questions:

The Nightingale opens with an intriguing statement that lays out one of the major themes of the book: “If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: In love we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are.” What do you think the narrator means by this? Is love the ideal and war the reality? How does war change the way these characters love?
Though sisters, Isabelle and Vianne react to conflict and war in very different ways. Do you identify more with Isabelle’s impetuous yet brave approach or Vianne’s quiet strength? Do you think you could have acted as heroically as Isabelle under such horrifying circumstances? Who is more heroic in your mind—Isabelle or Vianne?
Take a moment to talk about Beck. Did you find yourself feeling more sympathetic towards Beck as the novel progressed? Was he a good man? Did he deserve his fate?
Perhaps one of the most chilling moments in the book is when Vianne provides Captain Beck with a list: Jews. Communists. Homosexuals. Freemasons. We know now how wrong it was to provide this list, but can you understand why Vianne did it? What do you think you would have done?
After her friend and neighbor, Rachel, is taken away, Vianne takes in Rachel’s young son, Ari, giving him a new identity as Daniel Mauriac, and forcing him to forget his old life. Is this unfair or justified given the danger he would face otherwise?
Each of the sisters experiences love in a different way. Vianne’s love is that of a mature woman, a wife and a mother; Isabelle’s love is youthful and impulsive, more of a girlish dream than a reality. How did Isabelle’s feelings of abandonment shape her personality and her life? How did Vianne’s maternal love lead to acts of heroism, saving the lives of Jewish children? How did love—and war—bring these two sisters closer together?
Isabelle’s father sacrifices his own life to save her. She realizes that he is “trying to make it up to her, asking for forgiveness and seeking redemption all at once.” In your opinion, did this act accomplish that?
Discuss the scene in which Ari is taken away. What do you believe is the right answer in this situation—if there is one? What would you have done in Vianne’s position? Do you think this is what Rachel would have wanted?
Vianne recalls her husband, Antoine, telling her that “we choose to see miracles.” What does he mean by this? Is it his way of telling his wife he knows the truth about their son’s biological father? Or is it his way of looking at life, of coping with the terrible events they’ve lived through? Is seeing the beauty in the world an active choice? Is it possible to find miracles in our lives, if we look for them?
Do you think Julien had a right to know who his real father was? Would you have made the same decision Vianne did?
What was your reaction to the final scene between the two sisters, and to finally discovering the identity of the story’s narrator? Was it in line with your expectations, or were you taken by surprise? Were you satisfied when you discovered who was narrating the novel?
Finally, a show of hands: Who cried—or at least got a little choked up—while reading this book? Which scenes moved you the most? Which character’s fate would you say was the most tragic? The most poignant? Did the book give you a better understanding of life under Nazi occupation during World War II? Did it move you, inspire you, haunt you? And finally, what will you remember most about The Nightingale?