Review: Everyone Brave Is Forgiven

In Everyone Brave is Forgiven, we meet three London residents at the beginning of World War II. Alastair Heath has signed up to fight and is going through basic training. His best friend and roommate Tom Shaw stays in London to ensure the future of English schoolchildren. Mary North enlists to spite her wealthy family, with the expectation that she will become a glamorous spy. Instead, she is assigned to the education department and becomes a teacher. Their lives will intertwine in unexpected ways in the rubble of the London Blitz and on the battle-worn island of Malta.

Chris Cleave excels at bringing the major and the minor moments and concerns into the same story. Obviously, this is a story about the effects of war on both soldiers and civilians. Mary and Tom and Alastair have to grapple with what it means to be a good person (and if it's even worth it to be one) when death is indiscriminately everywhere. When most of London's children are sent to the countryside, Mary fights to teach the students left behind. This gives her new insight into what it means to be seen as a less desirable person, as the children left behind are the ones who are disabled or aren't white. It was interesting and disturbing to see how the people in Mary's life reacted to her teaching and becoming invested in the lives of these unwanted children. Mary is perhaps the character who develops the most throughout this book. She starts as a girl looking to defy her parents and be seen as glamorous as she assists the war effort. But we see her slowly realize just how to care for others and put them before herself.

We see the terror and heartbreak of war in moments both big and small; Allistar has almost made it back to base with a fellow soldier when his companion steps on landmine and Mary is distraught as she sits in a schoolroom that should be full of children and realizes that they have been robbed of both their education and their childhood. This story is incredibly tense throughout. I had moments of real fear for all three of the main characters, which defies everything we think we know about novels.

Everyone Brave Is Forgiven is both incredibly specific and stunningly universal. How do we as humans continue to live when our world is literally falling down around us? Do we risk ourselves for others or try to stay safe? Where is the time to have a breakdown and grieve your losses when another raid or battle is just hours away? What is left of ourselves and our countries after the war is over?

Everyone Brave Is Forgiven
By Chris Cleave
Simon and Schuster May 2016
432 pages
Read via Netgalley

Review: Gold

Kate and Zoe are competitive cyclists. They met at the age of nineteen when they both make the national program. They start training under the same coach, flirting with the same guy, and doing whatever it takes to get to the Olympics. Thirteen years later, the best friends are looking at the race that will be their most important and probably their last. The 2012 Olympics are on the horizon and Kate and Zoe are determined to race. Kate is trying to train all the while caring for her daughter who is fighting cancer. Zoe will do anything to win, including damaging her relationships and throwing her own safety and sanity aside. Will the Olympics bring the friends closer together and give them one last shot at glory, or will it tear them apart forever?

This story takes a friendship and places it in a unique context. I didn't know too much about competitive cycling, and I have to confess I haven't given much thought to the intense training that goes into becoming an Olympic athlete. While I will never walk into a stadium to the cheers of thousands, I think all parents can relate to the constant tightrope walk between the needs of our children and our own needs.

Like many books, this one oscillates between the past and the present. Cleave is expert at giving you tiny snippets of the past that illuminate the current storyline in really interesting ways. It's impossible not to care for Kate, her husband Nick and daughter Sophie, Zoe, and even their coach. If you have read a book by Cleave before, you know that he is a fan of the surprising twist. That certainly happens here, but the thing that really kept me turning pages was the fact that I didn't know how the story would end...and I wasn't sure which woman I wanted to win the gold. This book is not just for cycling or Olympics fans; it's a story for anyone who enjoys nuanced, fascinating characters and a compelling story. 


Gold
By Chris Cleave
Simon and Schuster July 2012
324 pages
From my shelves

Review: Little Bee

Little Bee

By Chris Cleave

Simon and Schuster February 2010

271 pages

From my shelves

I usually write my own descriptions of books instead of using the one from the publisher. But in this case, it's best to go into this book not knowing too much. Here's what is written on the back of Little Bee:

We don't want to tell you what happens in this book.

It is a truly special story and we don't want to spoil it.

Nevertheless, you need to know enough to buy it, so we will just say this:

This is the story of two women. Their lives collide one fateful day, and one of them has to make a terrible choice, the kind of choice we hope you never have to face. Two years later, they meet again - the story starts there....

Once you have read it, you'll want to tell your friends about it. When you do, please don't tell them what happens. The magic is in how the story unfolds.

So now I'm going to try to review a book without telling you much about it. The main characters of this story are the title's Little Bee and Sarah. The two women met on a beach in Nigeria and the things that happened there radically changed their lives. But Little Bee begins two years later, when Little Bee arrives at Sarah's front door. This gives author Chris Cleave the ability to move forwards and backwards in time, filling in the gaps as each woman learns what has happened in the other's life.

This book is a master class in the slow revealing of characters and events. We read through the first few chapters and think we know a few things about the characters in this story. But with each chapter, we learn new things and our perceptions are radically altered. In spite of their many failings and often selfish decisions, the reader comes to care for Little Bee, Sarah, and her young son who wants to be addressed only as Batman. For a story that isn't a thriller, this book had my heart in my throat more times than any book I can remember.

Little Bee is not an easy book to read, but it is one that will change you. The characters are dealing with war, a broken immigration system, depression, and floundering relationships. The story becomes a clarion call to the characters and to the reader to hold each other up through tough times, to put other's needs ahead of our own, and to search for hope in the darkest, most terrifying places.