On a whole, Everyone Brave is Forgiven, is a wonderful read but there are moment where the prose gets carried away. For example, giving minor things the grandest of similies. Other than the fluffy writing style, the story manages to hold my interest. I do feel it walked a fine line between realistic and fanciful - and yes, I realise how silly it is to say that about a work of fiction, but I can't think of a better way to put it.

It’s taken me a long while to start this book. Reading this in lockdown has made me appreciate it more, the life they lived in wartime compared to what we are going through now is no comparison.
But while the book was very well written it didn’t grip me, it was just an ok read for me.

Chris Cleave has a way of writing books that scream to be put on the big screen, I found myself casting this book as I read! The story touches on so many aspects other than the expected wartime drama, the story of racial tensions was one I particularly enjoyed, as this is something I'd never thought of in this context before.

The juxtaposition of the beautiful writing and the ugly reality of war is what makes Everyone Brave is Forgiven a memorable read and moving experience. As a teacher I admired Mary's dedication to teaching "negroes and cripples", those marginalized and cast aside and enjoyed the way that this era was so painstakingly recreated. The book captures the beauty of the transformation while illuminating the segregation and racism against blacks. "It had taken the war to reveal London's heart, centrifugal for white children and gravitational for Negroes." p. 384. If you like beautifully written, highly descriptive paragraphs this book is for you.

The strength of the book is that it delves into the darkness of enduring air raids, fighting in the war, dealing with grief and guilt, as well as issues of race and class. How does one stay true to who they are and their ideals during such trying times? Characters cling to what they can to get them through, survive, and continue living, no matter how heavy the burden and despite random death and destruction. I loved the way that we were transported into another time so successfully and its picture of wartime London has stayed with me a long time after finishing the book.

With its references to Ian McEwan’s “Atonement” and Sarah Waters’ “The Night Watch” from a Financial Times review quoted on the back cover of the paperback edition I knew that this would be a must-read for me. It is also an apt and deserved comparison.
And like McEwan and Waters I am happy to welcome Cleve as an author of one of my 100 Essential Books – such is the quality of this novel. His fourth book but the first I have read and for once I am pleased about this because I can tell this writer is going to be spreading much more delight my way with “Incendiary", (Winner of a Somerset Maugham award for writers under 35 in 2006), the 2008 Costa Award shortlisted “The Other Hand” and “Gold” (2013).
Also like McEwan and Waters Cleave has re-created the war years perhaps more evocatively than most of the countless writers who were writing when that period was not so distant. Perhaps we need that distance and the stories of our parents and grandparents need to become assimilated into what we perceive life in those years to have been like. Cleve loosely based his novel on a series of letters between his grandparents.
The novel spans September 1939-June 1942 and has a refreshingly simple month by month chronological structure. It is centred on wartime London and Malta where a blockade is starving the serving officers and civilians. Mary North signs up for War Office work and finds herself being sent to teach in a Primary School where preparations for evacuation are under way. She soon discovers that not all children are welcomed by host families and within her now empty school and with the support of her school official boyfriend, Tom, begins to work with the children unwanted by the countryside.
Tom’s work means that initially he is too valuable to be called up but flatmate Alastair joins up, taking with a jar of jam Tom made to be eaten together at the end of the war and soon finds himself an officer in Malta, struggling to survive.
What Cleve gets across very well is the thin line between life and death for this generation. Catastrophe can descend very quickly and the characters have to adapt their lives to this. They fall in love quickly, have to endure long absences and periods of not knowing whether loved ones are dead or alive. This all seems alien to our generation but there are still many people with us who lived through these times and Cleve’s novel has further deepened my appreciation of these people. Also very effectively conveyed are the attitudes of a class-driven society suspicious of other races. The treatment of black American schoolboy Zachary is shocking both in terms of action and language used. Cleve confronts these issues which can make for some disturbing moments.
The novel is well-written and totally involving. I found myself purposely slowing down my reading of it because I wanted to savour just what was going on (causing a bit of a backlog of books to be read to build up) but I don’t regret a single moment spent in the time of Chris Cleave’s characters.
This is an excellent novel from a great story-teller who deserves his position amongst the best of the novelists who have written about this time in our history. Seek it out!

Great book, well written and with a fantastic sense of place! To me if you write a book set in the past, do you're research or don't bother- it is clear the author did! I found this a difficult book to put down, it surprised me with the cynical way it looked at Blitz Britain! It's a character driven book that shows the skill of the author in making it gripping, whilst weaving the nature of 1940s Britain into fiction! More please if you don't mind!