Tag Archives: Kristin Hannah

Reality of Fascism Portrayed in The Nightingale

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Kristin Hannah reigns in historical fiction by weaving detailed character-driven stories with historical truth. I haven’t picked up a novel of hers I didn’t devour, and The Nightingale is no exception. The novel is perfect consumption for anyone wanting a good story or a lesson in the dangers of fascism.

In this blog I offer a different type of book review­—one that’s combined with vocabulary building. I loved The Nightingale and will highlight just two relevant words from the first line of this must-read.

First line of The Nightingale:

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.

love: noun — 1. an intense feeling of deep affection / a feeling of deep romantic or sexual attachment to someone / affectionate greetings conveyed to someone on one’s behalf / a formula for ending an affectionate letter / (Love) a personified figure of love, often represented as Cupid. 2. A great interest and pleasure in something 3. A person or thing that one loves / (a love) informal used to express affectionate approval for someone 4. (in tennis, squash, and some other sports) a score of zero; nil

verb — 1. feel deep affection for (someone) / feel a deep romantic or sexual attraction to (someone) 2. Like or enjoy very much

war: noun — a state of armed conflict between different nations or states or different groups within a nation or state / a particular armed conflict / a state of competition, conflict, or hostility between different people or groups / a sustained effort to deal with or end a particular unpleasant or undesirable situation or condition

verb — (wars, warring, warred) engage in a war

Just for note, the final paragraph of The Nightingale:

I look at them, my two boys, who should have broken me, but somehow saved me, each in his own way. Because of them I know now what matters, and it is not what I have lost. It is my memories. Wounds heal, love lasts, we remain.

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To connect or learn more about Kristin Hannah, find her at KristinHannah.com.

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What interesting words or terms have you found in your recent reading?

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Definitions are typically from the dictionary that comes with my Mac or The New Oxford American Dictionary.

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“The word is only a representation of the meaning; even at its best, writing almost always falls short of full meaning. Given that, why in God’s name would you want to make things worse by choosing a word which is only cousin to the one you really wanted to use?” ― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

The Great Alone Digs Deep in Alaska and Emotion

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This novel made me fall in love with Kristin Hannah’s writing. Hannah knows how to weave detail and emotion into a reading experience that immerses the reader in not only the world she creates but also in the gut or heart of the characters.

The Great Alone starts with the tale of a girl growing up and learning her way in the lonely wilderness of Alaska. Her father suffers from PTSD and alcoholism while her mother’s love for him blinds her to his abuse and the unhinged way he views the world until it’s too late. I’m reading The Women now and finding it just as immersive for the reader.

In this blog I offer a different type of book review­—one that’s combined with vocabulary building. I listened to The Great Alone on audio and heard a number of words I found unfamiliar. I’ll define just a couple of them here.

From The Great Alone:

Whenever Leni woke in the middle of the night, she invariably found her mother drifting through the house, her diaphanous robe trailing open.

diaphanous: adjective, (especially of fabric) light, delicate, and translucent.

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From The Great Alone:

They hurried up the stairs and tiptoed down the unlit hallway and into the master bedroom, a huge room with mullion windows and olive-green carpet.

mullion: noun, a vertical bar between the panes of glass in a window.

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What interesting words or terms have you found in your recent reading?

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 Definitions are typically from the dictionary that comes with my Mac or The New Oxford American Dictionary.

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To connect or learn more about Kristin Hannah, find her at KristinHannah.com.

“The word is only a representation of the meaning; even at its best, writing almost always falls short of full meaning. Given that, why in God’s name would you want to make things worse by choosing a word which is only cousin to the one you really wanted to use?” ― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft

A VOCABULARY BOOK REVIEW: FLY AWAY

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Fly Away is an intense romance by Kristin Hannah with the expected character development that makes Hannah a go-to author. Hannah weaves the human experiences of grief, hope, expectation, obligation, and more into a fantastic tale of love. Not only romantic love, but also a mother’s love, and the love between best friends. Fly Away is also about the promises we keep and the ones we can’t. 

In addition to Fly Away, Hannah is the author of Firefly Lane, now a Netflix series. Published in 2013 by St. Martin’s Press, Fly Away is among many titles by Hannah. Find her on Facebook or at kristinhannah.com. 

I haven’t read them all, but books by Hannah I haven’t read are on my TBR list. I love her writing, her characterization that makes me care, and her descriptions. Her plotting, twists, and turns keep me reading. I can’t comment on Hannah without pointing out the beautiful covers for most of her books, including the cover for Fly Away.

In this blog, I offer a different type of book review — one that’s combined with vocabulary building. The definitions here are for just a few words from Fly Away that I found interesting, unfamiliar, or unusual in use:

grief: noun 1. Deep sorrow, especially that caused by someone’s death. 2. Informal trouble or annoyance. 

From Fly Away: 

“Grief is a sneaky thing, always coming and going like some guest you didn’t invite and can’t turn away.”

AND

“Johnny closed his eyes. He’d worked so hard in the past few years to move past grief and fashion a new life for his family. He didn’t want to remember that terrible year, but how could he not—especially now?”

flotsam: noun. (Anglo-French flotesom, from Old French floter to float. Of Germanic origin: akin to Old English flotian to float, float ship) (circa 1607) 1. Floating wreckage of a ship or its cargo; broadly: floating debris. 2. a: a floating population (as of emigrants or castaways) b: an accumulation of miscellaneous or unimportant stuff. 

From Fly Away: 

“When she’d introduced him to her best friend, Kate Mularkey, who’d seemed paler and quieter, a bit of flotsam riding the crest of Tully’s wave, he’d barely noticed. It wasn’t until years later, when Katie dared to kiss him, that Johnny saw his future in a woman’s eyes.”

papasan chair: noun. a bowl-shaped cushioned chair often with a rattan base. 

From Fly Away: 

“His father-in-law, Bud, sat in the big papasan chair that easily held both boys when they played video games, and Sean, Kate’s younger brother, lay asleep on Will’s bed.”

de rigueur: adjective. (French)(1833) prescribed or required by fashion, etiquette, or custom: proper   

From Fly Away: 

“Her voice had that brittle sharpness that had become de rigueur since puberty. He sighed; even grief, it seemed, hadn’t softened his daughter. If anything, it had made her angrier.”

 Definitions are typically from the dictionary that comes with my Mac or Merriam Webster.

“The word is only a representation of the meaning; even at its best, writing almost always falls short of full meaning. Given that, why in God’s name would you want to make things worse by choosing a word which is only cousin to the one you really wanted to use?” ― Stephen King, On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.