With wet eyes and a full heart, I am writing this review. What is one to do, once they have finished? As they whisper, "I made it". 

The Nightingale is a story of a family, specifically two sisters, each brave in their own ways, each fighting their own war during WWII. Being particularly fond of All the Light We Cannot See, I expected this book to be similar. But unlike All the Light We Cannot See, we did not witness the atrocities of war as if through a telescope. We were not cushioned from the blows. No, in The Nightingale, we are up close and personal with the brutality, the cruelty, the terror and horror of WWII; with the nightmare that it was and the unfathomable courage that it was faced with.

And through it all, I managed to keep myself composed. I tend to be a weeper, but there was not a tear. Not till the last page, when I read the last line and suddenly it all came crashing down. As if I had steeled myself through it all, only to finally open myself to the deep sadness that I had just witnessed when it was over, when I didn't need the strength to keep going like I did before. When I could whisper "I made it", just as the characters can at the end of the war. 

It's silly to compare your reading of the book to the experiences described in the book, but it is a testament of the quality of writing that's held within these pages. Those books that make you forget you are reading? This is one of those. It was a magical, terrible, heartbreaking ride. And it left me with more gratitude for the life I lead than anything else.

p.s. This book swore only a handful of times, two of which were f-bombs. Additionally, one of the sisters, Vianne, is raped by a German officer living in her home. Though nothing is described crudely, there is enough for you to know the horror of it. But (and my heart is grateful), we're also shown that healing is possible. There are a couple other scenes were characters are intimate, but it was approached tastefully in my opinion, nothing that made me too uncomfortable while reading.