Reading and listening are the ways I learn foreign languages. It's always nice if you can find a book that is just a bit above your current level so that you can both understand without looking up words, but also continue to improve. That is sometimes the challenge!

I think this is a good take! I liked Vianne’s storyline and understood everything she did until the pregnancy. I couldn’t understand how she spent the whole book praising Antoine and then lied to him (and her son) and acted like the only thing that could repair their marriage was a baby that wasn’t his.

I would have preferred almost any storyline - Vianne not getting pregnant, Vianne miscarrying since she lost 3 babies that way already, Vianne telling Antoine and him supporting her, Antoine not coming home and Vianne raising the baby alone, or even Vianne trying to miscarry (I know this sounds terrible but I think it’s what I, or Isabelle, would have done in the situation 😭). I’m guessing abortion wasn’t an option, but what about adoption or giving the baby to the Mother at the church? I just hated that she had no negative thoughts about the pregnancy at all besides, “I’ve prayed for this but not now” once.

I expected Isabelle to die too. I just thought it was such a lame ending for such a strong woman. It felt like everything she did didn’t matter, only that Gaetan still thought she was pretty and he loved her.

Yes, I think I can decide what I think is worth people’s time based on my own experience. And yes, I think we’ve already covered that you think I’m arrogant and that I don’t care. But I am glad you’re able to decide that I’m arrogant.

I always thought plastic surgery was a modern, 20th century thing. Fascinating to read it was done that long ago WITHOUT ANESTHESIA!

Mutter was famous because he was ambidextrous and could work quickly, thereby lessening the torture. I wonder if the doctors back then had to draw their own pictures of 'before and after' patients?

Absolutely loved this book!

And you decide what is worth the time of people?

Well, sorry, but you do sound arrogant.

Try short stories instead. They're equally challenging, and equally literary, but not as overwhelming due to their length. I know Hemingway wrote many shorter works -- perhaps you could start with them and build your way up?

I’ll give my take on it. The overarching answer is trauma. Starting with Vianne, for me the most interesting aspect was her relationship with Beck. Of course he was the enemy but he was actively helping her. Not excusing his behavior at all but things are generally not so black and white and her attraction to him was interesting to see. But make no mistake she had no qualms about killing him.

She pretended the baby was Antoine’s from trauma. It was one more aspect of a mountain of suffering. What should she have done? Antoine knew the baby wasn’t his but didn’t care. They just wanted to go back to their lives. One thing that did bother me was that Antoine escaped prison and made it all the way home without being spotted but, oh well.

I fully expected Isabelle to die honestly. Just like Antoine’s return, Gaetans appearance right before she died didn’t sit well for me. The starvation, physical and mental exhaustion from the camp was bound to take its toll. I’d rather her have just died in the hospital.

In a situation like that, no one is really making rational decisions. They’re doing what they can to survive and protect their loved ones, whether by ensuring their child survives or by ensuring allied soldiers can escape and help them in the end. Just my opinion.

I would recommend reading a book you know really well! When I was learning German I picked up a copy of the first Harry Potter and it was much easier to get through since I knew the story and could pay attention to the sentences without worrying if I wasn't fully comprehending.

Thank you so much! I really like the concept of the WWII set fiction so I will definitely check these out :)

The lack of gloves in the pic bothers me.

It’s honestly a mess of a book and the only value I got from reading it was that now I ignore recommendations from people who cite it as a favorite. I’ve gone deep into WWII set fiction and this ain’t it. I desperately want to recommend something like The Invisible Bridge or even Lovely War (which I hate the title but it’s because it’s dealing with god and goddesses too) that pull it off so much better.

I think if she wrote a mystery and couldn’t prove a solution that would make her a bad mystery writer. I could come up with a great locked door mystery if I didn’t have to have solution.

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Don't listen to people telling you to read some YA because classics are supposedly "too hard". Edgar Allan Poe can be quite easy to read, for example! Plus he wrote some short stories, which is cool. Maybe you can start with things like that.

My advice would be to avoid looking up words on internet as much as possible, or even worse, to avoid translating words in a sec if you're using an e-reader. Doing so won't really help developping some good comprehension skills, especially on the long term.Taking your time to figure out the meaning of a word by analyzing its context will eventually make the task much easier. It's a bit annoying at first, but it's pretty rewarding. If your english is fairly good, you'll get there in no time (:

Oh I read this one a few years ago. Absolutely loved it. A very good read!

That’s pretty much what I was going to write. So I’m just going to say that I absolutely agree, I did just that and it worked amazing for me. Now I’m reading in English (my second language) without any struggle.

I really enjoyed the blue ant series, and it's funny seeing things like "Incredibly ugly sweater defeats AI surveillance camera" on news sites today, but even those had some pacing issues. The Peripheral had some interesting ideas, especially "the Klept" and ideas around who would be best suited to ride out a power vacuum but again.. pacing. Agency felt jarringly fractured at times, and I get that the main character is supposed to be the stand in for the audience but you are right that she is just along for the ride. The AI had more agency than the woman who basically gets kidnapped and told what to do by every other character including the AI.

A good mystery is a wonderful consumable and then it's more or less done with. Leaving the door open without a solution but a well crafted story that many or even all suspects are equally valid allows it to linger forever like a different kind of genre. I kind of agree if that was her plan she could have done so and maybe even leaned into it a bit harder in the story to emphasize themes to ponder. As it is the prototype for many modern mystery formats I wonder how pop culture would have been different though.

You know what, it might be that Agatha was truly creating more of a Thriller than a mystery in this one! Maybe you’re more into Thrillers than cozy mysteries?

I get your point, but I guess what I'm trying to say is that, at least to me, this book didn't feel like a mystery. It felt somewhat like a horror story, something like The Turn of The Screw. I'm not saying i thought there were ghosts involved, just that the tone was very horror-like, and that their situation was, to me, a manifestation of their collective internal guilt.

I think that's why the epilogue was such a betrayal to me.

Ohh I didn't know that. Huh that's interesting given Clinton wins the election in their timeline.

Watch shows/movies in a foreign language with your native language subtitles. After a while, it helps with word recognition (although some translations aren’t 100% correct). Later, it will help out with pronunciation and sentence structure. It helped me a lot growing up learning English, and now it’s helping me with Japanese as a 34-year-old

So much like Pattern Recognition, Gibson had written most of Agency, then Trump won the election. So he decided to scrap a bunch of it and re write it.

How do you mean rewrite?

But that is exactly my issue. I think that revealing the murderer was betraying the tone and feel she had established. To me this one felt a lot more like a horror book than her other books.

And thanks, i will check it out