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4.5 stars
Have you ever wondered how far you would go to protect the ones that you love? What if you fell in love with the enemy?
In this story, our main character Vivienne, her two girls and her ailing mother in law live on the island of Guernsey. Her husband has been called to serve in the war and she has to decide whether or not to leave the island she calls home. This decision comes because of the rumors that the Germans are to occupy their island.
Through the book we are shown the daily life o ...more
Have you ever wondered how far you would go to protect the ones that you love? What if you fell in love with the enemy?
In this story, our main character Vivienne, her two girls and her ailing mother in law live on the island of Guernsey. Her husband has been called to serve in the war and she has to decide whether or not to leave the island she calls home. This decision comes because of the rumors that the Germans are to occupy their island.
Through the book we are shown the daily life o ...more
The British isle of Guernsey is filled with all female families, as most of the men are fighting in WWII. Vivienne doesn't feel the absence of her husband as the distance between them was great. She meets the German living next door as an occupier of the island. Vivienne's life is irrevocably changed by this war. The book is a meditation on bravery, compassion and the resilience of human nature.
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While I think Leroy does a nice job at capturing the ambiguities inherent in trying to live an ordinary life under occupation, Vivienne's voice never quite came together for me. In places Leroy presents her as a bit of a bumbler, insecure and buffeted by the winds of circumstances she can't control, but she also gives Vivienne an intensity of introspective navel-gazing that seems at odds with her relative inaction throughout the book. For someone who spends so much of the book having Deep Though
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Very easy to read. Made me interested in the occupation of Guernsey during WWII.
Jun 02, 2011
Daisy
marked it as to-read
Jul 14, 2011
Gaijinmama
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Jul 27, 2011
Jayme Pendergraft
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Aug 12, 2011
Jocelyn
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Dec 14, 2011
Stephanie
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Mar 05, 2012
SandyC
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Feb 24, 2013
Anika
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Feb 13, 2014
Amy 💖
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Dec 05, 2019
Carol
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