2009 Book #3: "Suite Francaise" - Irene Nemirovsky

I like most books, but a pet peeve of mine is when a book ends without a real ending or resolution. I avoided this book for a while just due to the fact that I knew it would not be resolved as the author originally intended. Quite unfortunately, the author was taken by the Germans in the middle of writing this novel in WWII and was killed due to her Jewish heritage. Her daughters were hidden and survived, but throughout their underground existence, carried their mother's last, unfinished manuscript and only just recently published it. The author finished 2 of the 5 planned mini-books that were to make up the final novel, but I didn't mind the abrupt ending too much (although I wish she could have finished what would have been a fabulous tying together of all the pieces). What was great about this novel is that it is historical fiction that was written at the time that history was taking place. The honesty that the author uses to describe a horrible time in France's history was profound to me. It offered a different perspective than the one we are taught in school, truly showing the reality of how people will act when faced with the true horrors of war. This was a bit of a departure from the types of books I usually read, but I was glad I took the chance on this one.