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Everyone Brave is Forgiven by Chris Cleave - completed 4/21/20 - 3 stars - My Review

PBT Comments: Content warnings for sensitive readers include graphic war-related violence and racism/racial slurs.

Historical fiction set in WWII covering the period 1939 to 1942, emphasizing the London Blitz and the Siege of Malta. The storyline follows an ensemble of main characters. Eighteen-year-old Mary North, daughter of a politician, leads a privileged life in West London. She volunteers to assist the war effort and ends up teaching, where she meets Tom Shaw, who runs the schools, and his roommate, Alistair Heath, who has enlisted. She befriends one of her students, Zachary, a black American child. Her friend, Hilda, is another privileged girl who is looking for a husband and is jealous of Mary’s beauty. This book depicts the horrors of war in vivid detail. None of the characters is spared an encounter with one or more tragedies.

The strengths of this novel are twofold: 1) portraying lesser known events, such as the Siege of Malta and the American black experience of racism in London, and 2) showing changes and emotional growth in the characters. The drawbacks include unpleasant characters, incessant sarcastic dialogue, modern sensibilities, liberties taken with WWII timelines, and implausible plot points.

I listened to the audiobook, narrated by Luke Thompson. He does a wonderful job with many different accents and gives a unique voice to each character. I have read a good deal of both historical fiction and non-fiction related to WWII, and there are many books I would recommend ahead of this one.