Chris Cleave

Yikes.
Talk about white savior complex.

If you're picking up this book to read about Little Bee, the Nigerian refugee, then don't bother. It's not about her at all, but about the white British woman, Sarah. It's about her angst, her family drama, her need to become the said white savior, how Little Bee affects her life, and it's about her need to start off every bit of dialogue with "Oh Bee!" "Oh Laurence!" "Oh Charlie!".

Book content warnings:
suicide

I only continued reading this novel because show more a friend recommended it so highly, because as a survivor and a depressed person with suicidal thoughts, the beginning half of this book was very difficult to get through, as there was a suicide almost every single chapter. I'm not kidding. I mean, I'm glad the author said "It was depression that killed ___" instead of some ableist phrasing, but it's still not a fun ride when you fight these thoughts yourself.

OK. So I'm always wary of white dudes writing POVs of black girls/women, obviously, but this book came with so much hype. And let me down so hard. It has nothing to do with Little Bee or how she feels or how anything affects her. Everything is about the white people, how what happened on the beach (a very important plot point) affected them, etc. At one point Sarah says, "We need to talk about [what happened at the beach]," because she wants to know to ease her own heart and guilt. Because who cares about Little Bee or her probably ptsd and everything.

There's also a dash of sexism, heteronormativity, and explicit ableism (i.e. "'He was a twat, really, only you couldn't say that because he was blind. I suppose that's how he got so far. [. . .] He used to lean, like this, and his hand would sort of tremble. I think it was an act. He didn't tremble when he was reading Braille.'"

Even if I ignored everything above, the purple-ish writing quickly becomes stale, the white characters are unbearable to read, and the entire book feels like some sort of lecture. show less

Chris Cleave writes great thrillers. This one is more than just that. Incendiary is gut wrenching, unbelievable but yet feels like today, something like this could easily happen. A grieving widow writes letters to Osama bin Laden after losing her husband and son to a terrorist explosion at a soccer game in London. It is raw, painful, incredibly sad and yet there is humor, ( or irony perhaps,) and a narrative that is hyper realistic.
I couldn’t put it down.

Everyone Brave Is Forgiven is a love story set in the terror-filled times of the first few years of WW II. The settings vary from the streets and bomb shelters of London to the siege against British troops on Malta. Both settings are horrific scenes of death, destruction and abject terror.
This book’s primary story about a romance is, frankly, not as interesting as the surrounding events and situations, the vividness of its descriptions, and the honest handling of both war and of show more racism.
Beautiful but privileged Mary falls for soldier Alastair just as he is shipped off to Malta. Abandoning the safety of her privileged life, Mary wants to help children learn. When she can’t get a position working with mainstream children, Mary takes on the rejected and disowned, those outcasts who continue to be marginalized even today. She confronts first hand the abject, blatant and unapologetic racism of British society.
While Mary sees the full brunt of racism in London, Alastair feels the full brunt of war in Malta. The mangling of human bodies, the terror of unremitting fear of death, the dehumanization necessary for some as a means of psychological survival and the full mental and physical devastation that war truly is fills the pages of the novel.
So many books and movies gloss over or ignore what wars really do to victims, civilian and military alike, but this book does a good job of confronting and portraying them. The grisly horrors of children and civilians torn into pieces by enemy bombs in London vividly compares to the equally grisly death, destruction, privation and long term after effects of warfare on the battlefront.
Everyone Brave Is Forgiven goes beyond describing the carnage of war into portraying the psychological impact it has on people, both combatants and civilian victims. These scars impact lives and relationships long after peace treaties are signed and wars end.
This is a compelling book that clearly goes beyond being a romance and becomes a great book of historical fiction as well. show less

Everyone Brave Is Forgiven is a love story set in the terror-filled times of the first few years of WW II. The settings vary from the streets and bomb shelters of London to the siege against British troops on Malta. Both settings are horrific scenes of death, destruction and abject terror.
This book’s primary story about a romance is, frankly, not as interesting as the surrounding events and situations, the vividness of its descriptions, and the honest handling of both war and of show more racism.
Beautiful but privileged Mary falls for soldier Alastair just as he is shipped off to Malta. Abandoning the safety of her privileged life, Mary wants to help children learn. When she can’t get a position working with mainstream children, Mary takes on the rejected and disowned, those outcasts who continue to be marginalized even today. She confronts first hand the abject, blatant and unapologetic racism of British society.
While Mary sees the full brunt of racism in London, Alastair feels the full brunt of war in Malta. The mangling of human bodies, the terror of unremitting fear of death, the dehumanization necessary for some as a means of psychological survival and the full mental and physical devastation that war truly is fills the pages of the novel.
So many books and movies gloss over or ignore what wars really do to victims, civilian and military alike, but this book does a good job of confronting and portraying them. The grisly horrors of children and civilians torn into pieces by enemy bombs in London vividly compares to the equally grisly death, destruction, privation and long term after effects of warfare on the battlefront.
Everyone Brave Is Forgiven goes beyond describing the carnage of war into portraying the psychological impact it has on people, both combatants and civilian victims. These scars impact lives and relationships long after peace treaties are signed and wars end.
This is a compelling book that clearly goes beyond being a romance and becomes a great book of historical fiction as well. show less