Tuesday, October 27, 2015

Tuesday Intros -- The Nightingale


Every Tuesday, Diane at Bibliophile by the Sea posts the first paragraph of her current read. Anyone can join in. Go to Diane's website for the image and share the first paragraph of the current book you are reading.
I'm finally beginning The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. Set in France 1939 as Vianne's husband heads off to fight in the war, she and her daughter have to learn how to live with the Nazis when they invade. On Amazon,this book has over 14,000 reviews and 85 percent of them are 5-star reviews. I can definitely count on this being a good book.

April 9, 1995
The Oregon Coast
If I have learned anything in this long life of mine, it is this: In love, we find out who we want to be; in war we find out who we are. Today's young people want to know everything about everyone. They think talking about a problem will solve it. I come from a quieter generation. We understand the value of forgetting, the lure of reinvention. 
 Lately, though, I find myself thinking about the war and my past, about the people I lost.
Lost.
It makes it sound like I misplaced my loved one's, perhaps I left them where they don't belong and then turned away, too confused to retrace my steps.

Since this book is so popular, I imagine that many of you have read this book already. Let me know if you liked it, or more importantly didn't like it.

Now I need some advice from book reviewers.
I've agreed to do a book review for Book Tour and I didn't like the book. I definitely can't pretend to like it.
It's the kind of book that I turned to in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep. I could definitely count on it to help me doze off.
So what do you do? Give an honest review or back out of the book tour?
I've had people on book tours give bad reviews of my novels before, so I feel like it's okay to give a negative review, two or three stars.
What do you think?

4 comments:

Literary Feline said...

I want to read The Nightingale at some point. It sounds like something I would like.

As to your other question, I have read books for book tours that I haven't been particularly fond of. I only promise honest reviews--not positive ones--and so I do not have a problem posting a negative one. I do try to keep it balanced (but I try to do that with every review I write) where I point out the good and bad, and maybe point to a review that was of the opposite opinion as mine. Once I couldn't even finish the book, I just couldn't get through it. I contacted the person in charge of the tour and she was able to take me off the list. Then there was another time I was asked to go ahead and feature the book, but explain why I couldn't finish it. I don't know if this helps, but it's been my experience. Good luck!

(Diane) Bibliophile By the Sea said...

This is one that I wanted to read, but you know how that goes with so many terrific books out there, The intro makes me want to continue.

Laurel-Rain Snow said...

I loved this one...great opening lines....it was probably one of my top favorites from this author. Thanks for sharing, and for visiting my blog.

Diane said...

Paula, I loved this book. It is the best one I've read this year - dramatic, moving, intense, real. It puts you into the war time in a way I've rarely seen in other novels of the era.

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