Reviewed by Emma Crowley
Jersey, 1943. Once a warm and neighbourly community, now German soldiers patrol the cobbled streets, imposing a harsh rule on the people of the island.
Grace La Mottée, the island's only librarian, is ordered to destroy books which threaten the new regime. Instead, she hides the stories away in secret. Along with her headstrong best friend, postwoman Bea Rose, she wants to fight back. So she forms the wartime book club: a lifeline, offering fearful islanders the joy and escapism of reading.
But as the occupation drags on, the women's quiet acts of bravery become more perilous - and more important - than ever before. And, when tensions turn to violence, they are forced to face the true, terrible cost of resistance . . .
Many thanks to Hodder and Stoughton via NetGalley for my copy of The Wartime Book Club to review and to Sharon for having my review on the blog.
The compassion, devotion and dedication that Kate Thompson has for her subject matter radiates from every page of this wonderful and absorbing story. The Wartime Book Club is set on the Channel Island of Jersey during the German occupation of Word War Two and right from the opening page, this is a story of resilience, courage and fortitude and once I started reading I found it quite hard to put it down. It was evident so much research went into all aspects of the book as the past is vividly and realistically brought to life. It’s not overly heavy on details but rather strikes the perfect balance between what the daily life was like for the islanders and the more emotional turmoil and suffering that was endured.
This is a story of hope and bravery and acts of resistance be they small or large at a time when so many suffered from hunger, malnutrition, fear and suffocation. Kate Thomspon knows her subject matter thoroughly and she has paid a great homage to the islanders who went through five years of Nazi occupation seeing their island transformed from a beautiful place where many holiday makers came annually to an island cut off from Britain and left to endure on their own.
June 1940 and the peaceful tranquillity of Jersey is shattered as the Germans invade and life as the islanders knew it is now altered. Fast forward to 1943 and Grace is the acting chief librarian as Ash, who formerly held the position, has been sent to an internement camp. So many people left the island prior to the invasion and the hardy souls remain and life is now dominated by curfews, restrictions and rationing. ‘The iron grip over the most petty details of their lives had tightened, the tentacles of Nazification slowly spreading’. But what they do still have are books, despite the Nazi’s implementing a list of banned books. Banned books are detailed at the start of each chapter which I thought was a brilliant inclusion and quite frankly I was astonished at some of the books they chose to ban and the reasons why.
Grace is a remarkable young woman who only grows in strength the further the story progresses. She wages her own war with books not bombs and hides banned books in a locked secret cupboard within the library and also travels around the island delivering books to people who need to escape from their daily existence under the Nazi’s rule. Over the course of the war the actual number of books checked out of the library increased rather than decreased which shows how powerful books and the written word can be. Reading was the only form of joy and solace the islanders had given so much else was banned and they cherished this intellectual freedom very carefully.
Grace is a steadfast and hard worker who wants to do anything to overcome the totalitarian regime that she is living under but she is deeply affected when her brother Jimmy is killed trying to escape the island. She knows that with one wrong step what she is up to with the books may be discovered and Wolf, the head of the Nazi’s on the island, seems to be always lurking around every corner determined to outwit the islanders and enforce punishments. I thought this quote brilliantly summed up Grace and the work she did, ‘If a book is medicine then a librarian is the medic, dispensing books like prescriptions to soothe a tattered soul’, and that is what she did and was so very proud to do. She decides to form a book club at the library and as they do not have enough copies of books to go around she instead reads from books and people gather to listen and to escape from the Nazi’s rule for a few short hours even though there are strict rules and regulations around the running of the club.
It becomes like a form of therapy for the islanders and we are introduced to many characters as we are through Grace delivering books. Yet, at no time did it feel like the plot was overwhelmed with characters and their little sub plots. Instead each person mentioned, and what they were doing in terms of clandestine resistance activities, deserved their place in the story and only served to enhance it. For Grace there is also some romance but to say anything more than that would ruin the story but it was handled very well and I felt the push and pull and turmoil that she was going through and I questioned given the circumstances could love eventually win out?
Bea was the complete opposite to Grace who at times could be quite reserved as she under estimated the power of the work she was doing. Bea was fiery and impulsive and someone who would do anything to thwart the Germans plans. She rode close to the wind in everything she did and enjoyed playing a cat and mouse game with Wolf trying always to stay one step ahead of him. She is shattered when her fiancée Jimmy’s (Grace’s brother) plans to escape the island end in disaster and she doesn’t know how she will pick up the pieces but try she must. Bea works for the postal service which proves useful as she starts to engage in her own acts of resistance and all I can say is she was so brave and resourceful in what she did. For if discovered the consequences were surely going to be dire. I think she did what she did because she was fuelled by anger. Anger at the loss of Jimmy and rage that her sister Nancy was seen as a Jerrybag and in cahoots with the enemy. This is an aspect of the story that is very divisive, and I suppose unless you were there and living through it you do not have the option of making a choice as to whether what Nancy did was right or wrong.
I believed in what Bea did and felt she was right in her actions as she was thinking both of the long term and what she could do right at that moment to warn and save others. Bea has another issue to deal with but as she always pushes away her feelings she does the same with this and perhaps this is not the right course of action as there will be consequences. She was very much torn between a rock and a hard place and society too at the time had its own rules regarding what she was going through which only made me feel for her all the more. There is extreme hardship and horror that befalls both Bea and Grace that will affect you deeply and you just hope that they can both weather the storm and their friendship will emerge stronger than ever.
The Wartime Book Club is Kate Thompson at her very best and each time I read one of her books I am reminded just what a good author she is and that she one of my very favourite authors in the historical fiction genre. Grace and Bea’s stories are just two of many at the time and I really appreciate the author’s notes at the end which in fact read like a book in itself again showing how the author wished to highlight the bravery and dedication of so many in the face of such adversity, hardship and cruelty. So many islanders faced devastating moral choices. The repercussions of which they had to live with for the rest of their lives but they did everything in their limited power to thwart the Nazi regime and they should never be forgotten or their contribution to the war effort downplayed. The book club became a tour de force and developed into a literary support group all thanks to Grace and it was a ray of light and hope in the darkest of times and it brings a smile to your face. In fact, despite the tough subject matter and themes explored in some ways this is an uplifting read thanks to the resourcefulness, resolve, courage and conviction of the main characters. This was a brilliant and compelling read with two main characters as well as the island itself that will live on long in your mind once you have turned the final page. It’s a highly impressive read and definitely recommended.
Thanks for the blog tour support x
ReplyDelete