The Girl You Left Behind...

The Girl You Left Behind tells the story of two women, Sophie in the 20th century, and Liv in the modern world. Eduoard Lefevre paints a portrait of his wife Sophie and when he leaves her for war, the painting captivates the Kommandent of the town. She in turn, faces difficult decisions risking what reasonable life she has left to be reunited with him.

The description at the back of the book writes how this portrait is given to Liv in modern times by her own husband who then dies suddenly. Sophie and Liv's lives though a hundred years apart, are intertwined together by the portrait.

I've wanted to read something by Jojo Moyes for quite some time. To be completely honest, it was because of the lovely designs of the covers of her books rather than the description. I believe its because I am not completely familiar with the more mature fiction to know which authors I like and which I don't. But a friend told me that Me Before You was an absolute cry fest and that gave me the push to finally invest in a book by her. However, at the time, I wasn't in the mood to be torn apart so I decided to buy The Girl You Left Behind instead. Also because I was intrigued by the whole entwined lives of Sophie and Liv. I was curious as to how it worked.

The odd thing was that I read this book right after The Book Thief, another book about war, or affected by war. And thus the mood was pretty much sombre. I was travelling around Amsterdam at the time yet when I had free time, I always resorted to taking out this book and reading it. So it was definitely an interesting read that kept me very much in their world making me want to know what happens to the characters.

Sophie's story very much involves the German Kommandent and her fellow French towns people. The hatred of the French towards the Germans was well illustrated by Jojo Moyes, I never even knew it existed. As the lives of her characters unfold, it was interesting to see how perhaps the Germans were not that evil after all. Perhaps all they had was a truly charismatic and manic commander, brainwashing all his people. The Germans were human. As Sophie starts to see this side of the Germans, she puts herself and her family in spite of the rest of the towns people. The struggles war brings upon people involved and not involved causes too much pain.

As for Liv, I really liked how the connection with Sophie was tied up altogether. I don't think I should say much about it as you do need to get through quite a bit of reading to get to this, and I hate spoilers. But rest assured, its not some unbelievable completely manipulated twist, nothing crazy dramatic. It is something completely plausible. Liv's story is about her trying to get over the death of her husband. His death left her with nothing and the days that go by seems even more wasted as she is still so young. 

Both stories end nicely. I hope that doesn't give away too much. I really enjoyed the story and it was quite a good hearty read as well, 514 pages in total. Well worth the money, I'd say.

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Would I recommend this book?

Yes

How much do I rate this book?

4/5

Would I read other works by this author?

Yes, in fact I just bought two other books from her. Impulse shopping... feeling pretty guilty now.

Hope this helps. Thanks for reading!