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    Amandine
    Amandine
    Amandine
    Audiobook12 hours

    Amandine

    Written by Marlena de Blasi

    Narrated by John McDonough

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Marlena de Blasi, best-selling memoirist of A Thousand Days in Venice, makes her remarkable fiction debut with this poignant tale. Deemed an illegitimate child by her royal Polish family, Amandine is abandoned as a baby at a French convent. As she grows, Amandine struggles to accept her orphaned state. She longs to put together the missing pieces of her identity, but as WWII engulfs Europe, her time to find answers may be running short.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateOct 29, 2010
    ISBN9781449837686
    Amandine

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    Reviews for Amandine

    3.5/5

    108 ratings42 reviews

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    • 3/5
      This novel had its ups and downs. For the first 50 pages or so, I wasn't terribly impressed - there were a lot of passages (like, pages long passages) in italics, and I'm not sure if those were present in the final version of the book, but it threw me off. Later on, there were italics beginning randomly mid-sentence and continuing on, so I think some of them at least were edited out. Anyways, I had a tough time getting into it, but it picked up soon enough.I actually really enjoyed the middle of the book. Amandine and Solange's travels across France and their interactions with the people they meet along the way made their characters more real than they had been in the convent. The ending however, was abrupt - perhaps it was fitting in a way, but it felt like something was missing. Overall, a decent read.
    • 3/5
      I was drawn into this novel right away, the story of an aristocratic newborn who is left at a French convent by her grandmother. The first half of the story, telling of Amandine's time at the convent, growing up with her guardian Solange, reminded me of the boarding school stories I'd read as a child, complete with the evil headmistress.But when the story turned to Amandine and Solange's trek across France as they tried to get to Solange's childhood home during the midst of WWII, the book slowed down, with overly detailed descriptions of what they were eating and where they were staying. There was more telling than doing, and it started to wear on me. I did finish the book, but the oblique ending annoyed me, and wasn't at all satisfying. I wanted a more concrete ending to Amandine's story.
    • 1/5
      I love this author,but not this book.Not for me,could not finish it.
    • 3/5
      In Krakow in 1931, a baby girl is conceived out of wedlock. The child’s grandmother, a countess, believes that she is protecting her daughter when she claims that the baby didn’t survive. In truth, the countess deposits the infant at a remote convent in the French countryside, leaving her with a great sum of money and in the care of a young governess named Solange. Solange names the baby Amandine, and they form a special bond. But even Solange’s love cannot protect Amandine from the disdain of the abbess and the convent girls. Eventually Solange and Amandine set out for Solange’s childhood home in northern France. But what should have been a two-day journey becomes a years-long odyssey across Occupied France.

      I found this novel slow to start. DeBlasi gives us considerable emotional background on Amandine’s grandmother (the countess) and the reasoning she uses to convince herself she is doing the right thing, the ONLY thing she can in these circumstances. The narrator changed from chapter to chapter, and internal dialogue was printed in italics, which I found distracting when used for several pages in a row. However, once the characters were well established and Amandine began to show her own personality as a young child I got caught up in her story.

      The shame and secrecy of illegitimacy was a heavy burden in this era, and unfortunately, it was frequently laid on the shoulders of the innocent child. Whether it was because they truly believed it in her best interests, or because they feared the money would be cut off, the abbess and bishop conspired to keep any clue as to her origins from Amandine.

      War is not pretty and deBlasi does nothing to soften the horrors of the years – deprivation, cold, hunger, fear. Still, despite no encouragement and downright demands that she forget about her unknown family, the child clings to the hope that her mother will somehow find her and they will be reunited. Amandine also exhibits a rare grace and dignity for one so young. How she manages to hold her head high despite all the terrors visited up on her in the convent and on the run is beyond me. To say that she is treated cruelly is an understatement; one scene in particular is very distressing. And she has an amazing capacity to forgive. She seems to intuit the motives, fears, and dreams of the adults around her and accept their actions as necessary, forgiving them for not being able to see another way.

      About half-way through the book I had an inkling of how it might end. I was close. But deBlasi’s ending is both abrupt and inconclusive. This is the author’s only novel; her other works are nonfiction. I wonder if she is working on a sequel to this book.
    • 3/5
      This is a beautifully written book about a little girl who is an outcast from her family in WWII. She is sent away to live in a French convent though eventually flees with her guardian, Solange to make their way to Solange's childhood home.The beginning was a little slow with some lag in the middle. But it was more about character development than plot. It took me awhile to finish and I'm not sure I would recommend it, but I enjoyed parts and loved Amadine as well as Solange.
    • 4/5
      I really liked this book. I did not like the ending! I have a ARC prior to release here in Australia, and I have been skimming through the reviews here to convince myself that there wasn't an extra chapter missing from my copy! I felt so left up in the air, that I knocked half a star off my rating and considered knocking it back to 3.5 too. The storyline itself was wonderful, it plays out like a movie, and the short scenes and chapters kept me reading on for "just one more bit" a lot more than I should have. I loved the mirroring of the intersection of peoples lives with the train stations, and the movements of the Resistance, and the unpredictability of where people found themselves in wartime Europe. I really hope there will be a sequel.
    • 3/5
      Identity comes from the people who love you is the message of Marlena de Blasi’s novel, Amandine. She tells the story of a young orphan born in Poland just before WWII and spirited away to a convent in southern France to be raised by a former postulant. Amandine longs for her real mother but loves her surrogate mother, Solange, and the sisters in the convent. Ultimately the war breaks into their cloistered world and Amandine and Solange flee to Solange’s family in northern France. Their tortuous journey across wartorn France leads them into the path of the Resistance and unexpected tragedies. In a parallel story, Amandine’s birth mother, a member of the nobility, learns that the child she thought dead survived but she doesn’t know how or where. The dramatic tension centers on whether the two will find each other or will the war separate them forever.While an interesting story Amandine is ultimately unsuccessful. De Blasi spends most of the book creating a lyrical world in the convent and Amandine’s place in it. She excels in painting the landscape of southern France and the dynamics of the personalities in the convent. But the two main story lines, the convent and the WWII journey across France, somehow don’t quite connect. While reading the first part of the book, I was impatient to get to the war story which seemed to promise more in the way of drama. And yet the war part of the book, while more gripping, seemed more rushed and ultimately leads to an unsatisfying ending. The parallel story of Amandine’s birth mother was even less well-drawn involving characters it was hard to sympathize with. Amandine seemed better off where she was than with her actual birth family.
    • 4/5
      Amandine is an aristocratic child born of scandal in Poland just before World War II. She is born nameless, with a heart condition that means her continued survival is unlikely. Unable to bear the child's presence, Amandine's grandmother sends her to foster in a convent in France, careful to hide all traces of her ancestry bar one, an heirloom necklace. She even tells her daughter, Amandine's mother, that her daughter has died while having surgery as an infant. Instead, miraculously, Amandine grows up dreaming of her mother, finding substitutes along the way, but never losing grasp of the fact that she has a mother who might want her. When World War II breaks out, Amandine and her guardian Solange set out across France, determined to find a safe haven in a country torn apart by war, and perhaps to find someone who recognizes the peculiar antique necklace Amandine wears.In terms of plot, Amandine gets off to a painful start. The first chapters are riddled with the old countess's (the grandmother's) memories and the story of Amandine's birth. There are pages of description and little to no action. Once Amandine gets to the convent, things pick up slightly and it's easy to feel for the poor girl. When she goes to school, she is constantly mocked and also suffers when she has to watch the other girls reunite each weekend with their families. She has her long term guardian, Solange, but she's no substitute for Amandine's mother, no matter how much they love one another. Even as a child, Amandine is full of spirit and determined to defend herself and those she cares about, which makes it very easy for us as readers to care for her in turn. The rest of the characters are very well fleshed out, with believable internal conflicts revealed fairly slowly as the first half goes on. I really felt that this was a book populated by people, not just characters, if that makes sense.The plot picks up even more once the war arrives and with a few perspective shifts; the contrast between war-ravaged France and Poland and the initial chapters in the convent is striking. De Blasi effortlessly conveys the utter pointlessness of the war and the fragility of life at the time with a few well-written passages. Characters that were built up in the first chapters as complex human beings are struck down with barely a moment's notice. The author's writing is beautifully descriptive and I got a real feel for convent life and the French countryside, which makes the chapters about war even harder to read in comparison. And throughout, I was constantly hoping for Amandine to find her mother, which adds an extra layer of tension to the book's concluding chapters.Despite a slow start, Amandine revealed itself as a complex, engaging historical novel with strong characters and a distinct French atmosphere. It's the perfect choice for the historical fiction reader craving a thoughtful read.
    • 3/5
      In the fall of 1916, Count Antoni Czaritoski shoots his mistress, the Baroness Urszula Droutzky, and then shoots himself. Fortuitously Andzelika, the Count’s daughter and Pitor, the late Baroness’ brother meet in 1920 and produce a little girl. When the Countess Valeska Czaritoski learns Pitor’s true lineage she attempts to convince Andzelika to end the pregnancy. Unable to convince Andzelika the Countess arranges a guardian for the child and fakes the child’s death. Likewise, the Countess purchases a new identity and board for both the baby and her guardian Solange at the St.Hilare covenant far away from her native Krakow. With his suicide, the Count unwittingly condemns his granddaughter’s future to a life of solitude, cut off from her mother, her title, her heritage, and her inheritance. Amandine is a delicate depiction of the tragedy of war. It quietly celebrates the courage and honor of the underground soldiers of the French Resistance during WWII. In many ways, Amandine is a love story about a mother’s love. In Mater Paul, Amandine presents the psychological manifestations of the loss and bitterness that a child develops when in the custody of an unaffectionate parent who, although present physically, has emotionally abandoned the child. Rendering the grown up child bitter and unable to nurture and love a child. Jossett personifies the self-appointed mother protector of the abused child, Annick, who grows up to become the obstinate, cold, bitter, and vengeful Mater Paul head nun of the St.Hilare convent. Solange exemplifies maternal love that is generous, kind, loyal, and caring as she accepts and carries out her duties as a guardian, while she herself is still a child. We follow Amandine’s story as she longs to be reunited with her mother and our emotions are roused as we readers also yearn for justice for Amandine. Amandine’s, Solange’s, and Annick’s plight will evoke compassion and empathy from the reader. Andzelika and Jossett earn the reader’s pity. For the Countess Valeska the reader simply feels outrage at her duplicity and betrayal. Amandine is an emotional and informative work of historical fiction. The author provides the reader with an informal education on the realities of life during the war from the perspective of members of the Resistance. Readers may be inspired to learn more about the Resistance movement. Amandine will definitely find a home on the shelves of my classroom library.
    • 4/5
      I highly recommend this book. The writing style was beautifully descriptive.The story begins when a rich Countess takes her illegitimate grandchild to a convent to be raised in secrecy. The child is left with an appointed guardian chosen by the Countess. The agreement with the convent and the guardian, is such that Amandine will be raised as an orphan, never knowing who she is or where she came from. Amandine's mother is told that her illegitimate child has died, and was never to be told otherwise. As the story progresses Amandine develops loving relationships with not only her guardian, but also with those within the convent walls. Certain circumstances arise during the novel which force the guardian and Amandine to flee from the convent. I found the book was beautifully written, with good character development. All in all, it was a good read.
    • 2/5
      I really liked the story of the book, but I thought it was long and drawn out. The ending was sort of a cliff hanger, but not enough to make me keep thinking about the book. This is not a book I would highly recommend to anyone.
    • 3/5
      Amandine de Crecy, a motherless girl being raised in a convent in the south of France, is the central character in this novel set on the cusp of the Second World War. Abandoned at the convent by her birth family, Amandine is raised by the nuns and a former novitiate, Solange Jouffroi. Amandine dreams of finding her mother, and as France capitulates to the Nazis, she and Solange take to the road in search of information about Amandine's mother. Along the way they face the dangers of Nazi occupation, and are taken under the wing of the French Resistance. This is a beautifully-written book. The prose is evocative, and wonderfullly illustrative of the southern French countryside. The writing is just as beautiful as the cover art. Unfortunately the plot was not nearly so exciting. The first half of the book is nearly all descriptive. Within the walls of the convent very little happens. The plot does get decidedly better once Solange and Amandine take to the road. The pair's journey through war-torn France is suspenseful and danger-ridden. I found the discussion of the French resistence to be extremely interesting, illustrating how the secret networks operated. De Blasi gives a strong sense of the danger and uncertainty that faced all of those involved in the resistence movement: never knowing where one was headed, if one would survive, or the fate of of one's friends and family. There is no romanticizing the violence of resistence here. The second half of the book is also stronger because it's in the second half of the book that Amandine's character becomes more believable. Amandine grows up in the first half of the book, spending her first decade in the convent. Despite this significant passage of time, her speech, actions, and mannerisms fail to change along with her age. Throughout Amandine acts and speaks as though she is far older than her years. While some of that could be explained by the fact that she is surrounded by adults in the convent, her behavior and speech patterns are simply not believable until she reaches her teenage years. It's not until she grows older that I could really believe in Amandine's mannerisms.
    • 4/5
      In order to prevent scandal among her royal Polish family, young Amandine is given to a convent in Montpelier as a toddler, with a young woman named Solange contracted to care for and raise her. Though Solange and Amandine are not bound by the strict rules of the convent, their lives take the same shapes and behaviors as those of the nuns that come to love them. But among the residents of the convent is mater Paul, the bitter and cruel abbess who uses her position to punish both the girl and her ward. Amandine, though beloved by most all of the residents of the convent, never stops dreaming of reuniting with her real mother and grows to be a sad and serious child who feels each hurt tremendously. As Solange and Amandine grow together, they come to understand the importance of staying away from sister Paul. When disease breaks out among the residents of the convent, the two decide to flee, hoping to reunite with Solange's family in the French countryside. But France is at war with Germany and the country has been dreadfully changed: travel for the two is far from secured. Soon the two are running from the German soldiers and being spirited away to hiding places by the French resistance. When the unthinkable happens one night, Amandine is left to decide if she will stay with a group of resistance fighters or continue along her terrifying journey. Rich in atmosphere and drama, the story of Amandine is one of both the hope of new life and the tragedy of war.I am discovering that I have a real liking for literature that takes place in convents. It's not that I would say that I go searching for it, but lately books about convent life have been coming into my path with more and more frequency. I think there's just something so fascinating about getting the chance to look into a world that is a microcosm of the greater world outside, and have come to relish the particular stringency and dedication of women and men of the cloth. I think it would be great if my readings led me to more literature about monasteries as well, but for the time being, I am happy with learning all there is to know about abbeys and the people that populate them.When I initially started this book, I was a little afraid that it was going to be too melodramatic to get real enjoyment out of, but I needn't have feared because the author takes great pains to avoid becoming tirelessly dramatic. The plot, characters and setting were almost pitch perfect, and though the situations in the book bordered on the dramatic, the way that the characters behaved and contemplated their situations and surroundings was done in a very realistic and almost subdued way. Nowhere was the writing hysterical and florid, and because of that, I fell into the rhythm of the story very quickly. It was a story that was steeped in sadness, loss and needless cruelty, but it didn't go overboard in portraying these things. Instead the tragedy was wrought with a fine and delicate hand, really allowing me to feel for the characters, and letting me lose myself in their story.It was interesting, as I was reading, to discover the layers and layers of character development that the author created. Mater Paul, for example, at first appears to be nothing more than a vengeful woman who has severe control issues, but as the story unfolded, I came to see her for what she was: a very damaged woman who couldn't come to terms with her brokenness. Solange, too, was a double-sided creature. So blindly devoted to the young child entrusted to her but callous and unforgiving of the mother who she ran away from. This complexity of character was seen almost everywhere in the book and it made for a very rich reading experience. Things were never just black and white; there were many shades of grey to consider as well.Amandine herself was a character that I felt a great affinity for. She was not overly precocious (which drives me mad) and looked at the world with the perspective of one much older and wiser. I felt that she carried a great dignity within herself and even at the hands of Paul and her abuse, Amandine never let herself become maudlin, only more serious and resolute. She also never let her tormentors outwit her, which was wonderful. Amandine's relationship with Solange was another interesting aspect of the book. Solange was the only mother that Amandine ever knew, but at times, the roles between them were reversed, with Solange taking comfort and refuge in Amandine in much the same way a child would in her mother. Though Amandine had an atypical childhood, it never registered in her behavior and one almost takes away the impression that she would have been a serious and grave child no matter what her circumstances. Her hunger for her birth mother at times consumed her and made her unable to accept the affection and love that others tried to give her. At times, she was like a closed flower, eschewing the rain. In brief moments of clarity, I think that Amandine knew that she would never meet her mother but her constant desire for the opposite to be true colored her perceptions almost constantly.The first half of this book dealt mostly with Amandine and Solange's time in the abbey, and for me, that was where the meat of the story was. The setting provided the intrigue, drama and pathos which gave the story its depth. When the girls decide to leave the convent and venture out to the countryside, things began to fall a little flat for me. I think this is because I am just really burnt out on literature about WWII and the occupation. I read these sections with a little less interest and compulsion and felt that the author was really treading ground that I had been over before. There are so many things that could have happened to the two of them out on the road, but instead they became part of the war experience, complete with tortures, executions and starvation. It just felt like such a dramatic shift from life at the convent, and one that I didn't much appreciate. I thought this section of the book moved a lot slower and was a lot less involving and captivating to me. Shifting to WWII took the focus off the characters and shifted it into the setting, turning the book into something new and unexpected for me. Whereas I had grown to love the close little world of the convent and its characters, I was now in the midst of a new set of circumstances and people who I felt were a lot less well defined. I felt a little bogged down in my reading of these sections and because of this, my whole impression of the book suffered.I would have to say that this book was both a success and a failure with me. Had the action stayed in the convent, I am sure this would have been completely wonderful read for me, but the fact that the book morphed into a war story during its final section had me not only frustrated but a little confused as well. Though overall I thought the characterizations and drama were expertly done during the first half, I also felt that the second half managed to be a little over encumbered and overambitious with these same elements. I am not sure what conclusions I should make about this book because it was so good at times but also so bad at others. I think I will probably just end up recommending this to those who aren't yet burnt out on WWII literature and who also like literature about convents. I so wish that I could have loved this book unreservedly, but alas, it was not meant to be.
    • 3/5
      This novel had its ups and downs. For the first 50 pages or so, I wasn't terribly impressed - there were a lot of passages (like, pages long passages) in italics, and I'm not sure if those were present in the final version of the book, but it threw me off. Later on, there were italics beginning randomly mid-sentence and continuing on, so I think some of them at least were edited out. Anyways, I had a tough time getting into it, but it picked up soon enough.I actually really enjoyed the middle of the book. Amandine and Solange's travels across France and their interactions with the people they meet along the way made their characters more real than they had been in the convent. The ending however, was abrupt - perhaps it was fitting in a way, but it felt like something was missing. Overall, a decent read.
    • 4/5
      I wanted to like this book, especailly as I usually enjoy books set in France, but this one didn't really do it for me. The language was somewhat stilted, even for my tastes, and though it was tenderly written, I found it slow to get through.
    • 3/5
      It's 1931, and the 17-year old daughter of a Polish countess has given birth to a daughter, the result of an affair with her cousin's schoolmate. What is worse, her mother discovers that the boy is the brother of the mistress that her husband murdered, in whose arms he shot himself. In addition, the baby has a heart defect and is not expected to live long. The countess decides that the best thing to do is to tell her daughter that she is taking the baby to Switzerland for surgery, then report that the baby has died. Instead, she arranges to leave the child and a devoted nursemaid at a convent, paying for her to stay until her anticipated death.All this happens in the first few pages, so there aren't any spoilers here; and it sets up what began as a very intriguing novel. But about 150 pages in, I started to get bored. It was just too precious, the plot just too pat. The baby, named Amandine by her nanny, is adored by the sisters--except for the stereotypical 'bad nun,' the cruel Mater Paul. And of course, she is beautiful, loving, insightful, and intelligent. Other stereotypes abound: the lustful bishop, the kindly priest, the tormented mother, etc. I stuck it out to the end, but I have to admit that I found myself skimming the last 100 pages.
    • 4/5
      I'll start by saying Amandine is not historical fiction with a lot of depth nor with a lot of history. Historical fiction fans won't learn much in this novel they don't already know. I did, however really enjoy Amandine. The authors prose and pace are exceptional. I greatly admire writers who can use few words really well -- and de Blasi can. Perhaps because I read it after reading Those Who Save Us, I also found it refreshing to spend time with ordinary people trapped in extraordinary times without blood, guts and gore or sadistic Nazi's from beginning to end -- though I knew at least some of that was coming. I was very impressed by how de Blasi handled the swiftness of Solange and the countress' deaths. They were fast and meant to be that way. de Blasi balenced them perfectly and made them very real. She meant to illuminate how swift life can end and achieved that goal. I found her depication of life in the convent and life on the run very compelling but thought the convent lasted a tad too long. I would have liked more on the French resistance, which made this novel a little light on the "historical" side for me. As for the story itself, it's been told before, nothing new there, but it IS told well.
    • 3/5
      I am so disappointed that I did not like this book. I love her Thousand Days in Tuscany and Thousand Days in Venice. When I saw this book by her in Early Reviewers I was excited. I was confused by the writing style in this book, very hard to follow. I thought the search for her daughter was dropped rather abruptly and instead she ventured the lives of the young boys. I was not fond of the ending, was she setting this up for further books. It seemed as if the book built up until the ending and then it really let the reader down. I will continue to recommend her other two books, but I will have a hard time with this one. I would certainly give her another try if she writes another, but this one left me flat.
    • 5/5
      Amandine is the first novel written by Marlena de Blasi, an author known for her memoir writing. The story is captivating and the author’s writing is simply beautiful, filled with sense details and unforgettable characters. Amandine is born out of wedlock into an aristocratic family in Krakow, Poland in 1931. She is born with a heart defect and not expected to survive. Under the pretext of bringing her to a hospital in Switzerland, Amandine’s grandmother brings her to a remote convent in France. The Countess arranges to leave the child at the convent with a large sum of money and in the care of a governess, Solange Jouffroi. As a young child, Amandine is doted on by the nuns, Pere Philippe and Solange, but suffers cruelty and humiliation at the hands of the Abbess Mother Paul and the other children attending school at the convent. This cruelty, compounded by the abandonment by her mother, causes Amandine to believe there is something wrong with her. After a tragedy involving Amandine is barely averted, Solange takes her on a harrowing journey north through occupied France toward the governess’s home. Leaving their sheltered life in the convent, the pair discovers the horrors of war all around them. Meanwhile, Amandine’s birth mother, having just recently discovered that her child did not die at the hospital in Switzerland, has begun her own journey to find her. This is a story that will stay with you long after you’ve read it.
    • 4/5
      I liked this book, but I kept waiting for something to, well, happen. The first half of the book centers on Amandine's life in the convent, and we are shown just glimpses of her mother and grandmother. I was hoping for more development there. I also wanted to know more about Solange. Amandine was an endearing character, but, like other reviewers, I found it hard to believe that a little girl was so wise about life. I really enjoyed the French country living described by the author, and Amandine's journey with Solange. I just wished the end was a little more satisfying. I would recommend this book to others, but I would have to say that it not the type of book that has all loose ends tied up nicely at the end.
    • 4/5
      I really liked this book. The writing was very economic. I mean that there was very little superfluous detail. But, I have 3 main criticisms.1 - The title character was just a little too noble and a little too good. I often didn't think she was a credible character, so wise beyond her years.2 - I thought that the whole story about her mother adopting orphan boys was incredulous, even unnecessary. What ever happened to her searching for her daughter?? 3 - The ending was anti-climatic. How could the author just end it there in the train station?? It seemed very unfair to me, the reader. After investing so much in the story and the search to end with a cliffhanger was, well, just wrong. No sure I would recommend the book and do that to someone else.
    • 3/5
      The first half of this book was a little hard to get into and keep reading, mainly taking place in the convent where Amandine is placed by her Grandmother. There were too many segways into some of the character's thoughts that seemed to ramble a bit. The second half of the book was much better, regrading the journey through France and the war.
    • 4/5
      it took way too long to read this book for me, and I have yet to figure out why. The story line was good, and the characters were relatable. But it seemed to me that people died fast and without warning. The heartache can be felt, but then you get upset with the next set of events. I think the thing that made me the most upset was the ending. So much went unsaid, and I can only hope that this means a sequal.
    • 4/5
      Amandine, the story of a Polish baby given to the care of a French convent a few years before the outbreak of WWII, was well-paced and very readable. I found the characters to be absorbing and complex and the introduction of historical events neither too present and distracting nor sidelined to insignificance.It is true that many questions are left unanswered by the ending of the novel, but I didn't find this unsatisfying. Rather, I think that many will enjoy using what they know of the characters and of history to speculate about what has happened to some characters and what will happen to others. I would recommend this book to readers who enjoy coming-of-age stories or historical fiction centered around common people living through wartime.
    • 3/5
      A Polish aristocrat's daughter has had a child out of wedlock in the 1930s. Worse, the father is the brother of the woman with whom the aristocrat's husband was having an affair, and whom he later murdered before he killed himself. The Countess takes the baby and has her placed in a French convent together with a young woman hired to be her guardian. Neither the guardian nor the Abbess of the convent are told or given any information about the identity of the child's parents or grandparents.This book focuses on the child, Armandine, and her life in the convent, followed by the flight she and her guardian take just as Hitler's army invades France. There was such potential to take the characters to a greater depth, but I felt the author just scratched the surface and skated off it.It's not a bad book, but not a great one
    • 3/5
      I was drawn into this novel right away, the story of an aristocratic newborn who is left at a French convent by her grandmother. The first half of the story, telling of Amandine's time at the convent, growing up with her guardian Solange, reminded me of the boarding school stories I'd read as a child, complete with the evil headmistress.But when the story turned to Amandine and Solange's trek across France as they tried to get to Solange's childhood home during the midst of WWII, the book slowed down, with overly detailed descriptions of what they were eating and where they were staying. There was more telling than doing, and it started to wear on me. I did finish the book, but the oblique ending annoyed me, and wasn't at all satisfying. I wanted a more concrete ending to Amandine's story.
    • 2/5
      I really tried to like this book. The first couple of pages seemed promising. Valeska, the Countess, seemed like an intriguing character that might have pulled me in. However, once the book left Amandine's family and focused solely on her as a baby at the convent, I found the book slow and boring. I decided to give it 100 pages before giving up, but nothing at all happened to keep me going after that. I found I didn't care what happened to Amandine or any of the people with her at the convent -- even with the pages of internal thought from some of these characters. Since at this point there was no plot development, just character development, that meant there was nothing to keep me interested. So, I only made it to page 100. There are too many good books waiting to be read to waste my time reading about characters that are uninteresting.
    • 4/5
      Amandine is a rather sweeping, almost epic (without the length) tale of the aforementioned young girl’s life and journey through World War II France. It is more than that, though, and Amandine becomes a thoroughly enticing tale that interweaves, almost seamlessly, three very intriguing plotlines/character interfaces.The first plotline is that of Contessa Valeska Czartoryski and her daughter, Andzelika, from whom Amandine the child is born. The countess is a well-rounded character who is unfortunately prone to long “thought monologues” that are set off in italics (a distraction, and difficult to read for a length of time); however, despite that, the countess sets off the chain of events upon which the entire novel is set. Valeska faces a moral dilemma and makes an unforgivable choice to give Amandine, her daughter’s newborn baby, up to a convent, and then tells her daughter Andzelika that the child died from heart complications. The countless is well aware that what she is doing is unforgivable: “For what I have done, for what I shall do today, forgive me, Andzelika.” Yet, even the countless is enthralled with Amandine.The second plotline is that of Solange, the woman hired to be Amandine’s caretaker at the convent. The majority of the book is devoted to Solange; she is a strong yet supple woman, prone to making rash decisions, such as when upon discovering Josette’s betrayal, she immediately disembarks for northern France, despite the country being overrun by war. Solange is Amandine’s true “mother” figure and aside from that, we learn very little about her as a character. Thirdly is Amandine herself, a young girl who grows up in a convent and who learns she has a mother who gave her up. Naturally, she becomes obsessed with finding her mother. What struck me the most about the character of Amandine is her veracity—I believed in her, and that is what made this novel so enjoyable. The relationship between Solange and Amandine is also quite touching; for instance, this exchange between them, in Chapter X, is one of my favorites:“Amandine gets up, smoothes her plaid skirt, adjusts one fallen yellow sock, looks uncertainly at Solange. ‘Will you stay right here?’‘Yes. Right here. Go now. You may go. I’ll be here waiting for you. Trust me.’Amandine nods, turns, starts off, then turns back. ‘But what if you’re not here when I come back?’‘I’ll be here.’‘Is that what trust means?’‘Yes.’She goes, then returns again. ‘Do some people say they will and then they don’t?’‘Yes.’‘What’s that called?’‘A broken trust.’Amandine stays still. Closes her eyes for a moment. ‘Can it be fixed? If it’s broken, can a trust be fixed?’‘It depends on how badly it’s broken. Now go. It’s nearly time for us to be back at the convent.’”Overall, de Blasi’s writing style is fluid and poetic without being overly maudlin. At times, especially during dialogue sequences, her diction can become a bit choppy, but generally her prose is a joy to read. The copy I received was an advance version and had numerous typographical and formatting errors, especially random italicizing – for instance, entire paragraphs were italicized for no reason whatsoever. The name Amandine was italicized even though it was referring to the person, not the book itself. However, that is to be expected in an advance draft copy of the book, and is no reflection on the narrative itself.If you are a fan of historical fiction, then definitely give Amandine a read.
    • 4/5
      Heartbreakingly beautiful. I have not read a book before this that touched me deeply enough to not bring me to tears just once but several times. A magnificent blend of the central story of the orphan girl Amandine against the back drop of World War II that culminates into the perfect dance. Who will see and feel the atrocities of war not just through the eyes of a young girl but through the eyes of those who fought against them. The feelings the story evokes will haunt you long after you have finished. For myself I do wish that there was a bit more to the ending. The author alludes to what will take place yet allows the reader to then use their imagination. There is nothing wrong with this type of ending but I admit that I am a reader who likes it all "spelled" out for me. I want to know for sure what takes place not decide what I would like to take place.
    • 5/5
      I received this book through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program. I have to say, although I had a little trouble getting into the story in the first chapter, after that I was completely hooked. When I wasn't reading the book, I was thinking about the story.The story is of a child born to Polish nobility who has a heart defect and is not expected to live more than a few years. Because the baby girl is born out of wedlock to a 16-year old, the baby's grandmother, a Polish countess, takes her to a convent in France and places them into the care of a lay sister named Solange.The child, Amandine, grows up in the convent, but is determined to find her mother. She and Solange leave the convent when Germany invades France and wend their way north through occupied France trying to get to Solange's family farm.This story is one about motherhood, family, relationships, tragedy, sadness and joy, all rolled into a book that will keep you thinking about the characters long after the story itself is finished. Fantastic!