Review: "Everyone Brave Is Forgiven"

So I have a bit of a thing for the 1940's. I love the music, the clothes, and how everyone banded together through the hardships of the war. Occasionally I indulge in an episode of Agent Carter to get my fix, but sometimes I pick up a WWII-era novel. They contain adventure and romance, but unfortunately, most of them are INCREDIBLY DEPRESSING.

The offender in question is Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave. It features four young adults thrown into the fray of the war, still trying to figure out what love is and what life is about. In an absolutely gorgeous style, even characters who you swore you wouldn't like manage to worm their way into your heart.

I mentioned that this story is depressing, but that was a misstatement. It is worse than depressing. It begins to warm your heart with its beautiful storytelling, makes you laugh so that milk sprays out of your nose with its antics between friends, and assures you that though the hardships of the war are present, it's going to be okay. Then, once it has won your trust, it squeezes your heart so tight it cannot beat, throws it onto the ground, and stamps it into the cement like a discarded cigarette before scraping the remaining pieces into a big, lumpy red stain. But you keep reading, because although things seem to be getting worse and worse and worse, you know that things must turn out okay eventually, right? Right?!

I listened to the audiobook version from Overdrive (a free eBook app that partners with many libraries) and absolutely fell in love with it. The narrator is clear, expressive, and gives each character an incredibly distinctive voice so that you always know who is talking (something that I personally found difficult while listening to the Harry Potter audiobooks on CD as a kid).

Overall, I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about the London Blitz. We read about WWII in textbooks, but this story is about the people involved who are just like you and me. It is an experience like no other to read about such a complicated and sad matter in a medium that makes you fall in love with the subject.

I bet the author's next book will be about a dog with cancer. If he keeps up this alternating heart-warmingly and heart-wrenchingly vivid style of his, I might just forgive him for it.