Being Brave

A very good looking proof

Every once in a while, a reader comes across a book that they know from the very first line is going to be outstanding. We all remember the great first lines: Pride and Prejudice, To Kill a Mockingbird, A Tale of Two Cities, Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Go-Between and I Capture the Castle to name just a few. They get your attention, they set the book up, they give you the confidence that this is going to be a truly exceptional read.

The first line of this book is so compelling that the publisher used it on the front of the book proof, "War was declared at 11.15 and Mary North signed up at noon." I knew from that very line, Everyone Brave Is Forgiven by Chris Cleave was going to be a book that I wouldn't want to finish - and I was right. I wanted to be reading it all the time and I loved every single minute of it. Even the desperately sad parts, the sometimes casual depiction of the everyday horrors of war, the brutal violence and the physical and emotional destruction that comes with it.

Enjoying every word

This book was described by the publishers in their advance material as a literary epic and although it most certainly is literary there is something too detailed and too intimate to allow it to be described as an epic. An epic, to me, is a sprawling thing with a myriad of characters, tangled relationships and a timeframe that goes on at least a decade too long. The action of Everyone Brave Is Forgiven takes place over a mere 21 months. There are only a handful of characters and although their relationships are complicated they are never heavy-handed or overdone. One of the things that most struck me about this book was the changes in the characters over the timeframe of the book. At the beginning, they are funny, young, hopeful and brave; by the end they are older, wiser, slower, a bit broken but certainly no less brave. 

A part of me fell in love with each of the characters, flawed though they were and they became friends that I didn't want to be parted from. The deliciously open ending was perfect and made that parting bearable as they carried on their lives without me observing them. A wonderful book with an opening line that augered well, promised much and delivered more.