On the whole, I liked it. Much too much droning on about feelings for my taste, but I loved the descriptive style, which made me feel like I was right there; on the beach, watching the fireworks, or in Saint-Elme, or on the road with the refugees. Initially, I found the way that the author skips over major events quite odd, conditioned as I am by Hollywood movies and blockbuster novels. But I started to find this really interesting - how she told the story through the quiet moments. It also presented an alternative viewpoint of war to the grimy, violent one in my head - the waiting, not knowing what's going on; the sun still shining, the birds singing and the flowers blooming. I'd say more like 3.5 stars. While Némirovsky's prose is gorgeous, I found this to suffer both from the structure, which skipped large swaths of time between chapters, and telling the story to the reader rather than showing it (also what happened to the daughter Colette at the end – did she just disappear?). I much preferred both Fire in the Blood and Suite Française to this, though there were still so many wonderful turns of phrase and Némirovsky does such a great job of capturing love and how people interact and relate to each other.
Do You like book All Our Worldly Goods (1947)?
French countryside from WW I to WW II; the common people's experiences in the wars.
—Wwish
What a beautiful book, especially bearing in mind when and where it was written.
—Jen
