This is a wonderful story.
A powerful story that tackles some tricky topics set around the First World War.
I adore Sally Nicholls writing. Her characters are so well written. I could see them clearly in my mind and I felt everything they were feeling as I read. Especially Margot. She reminded me of me in many ways.
At just 16 Margot’s life is turned upside down. She falls in love with her Harry who adores her just as much.
Before he is sent off to war they escape their chaperones and fall into each other’s arms. The first secret of the story, forbidden love. The two are engaged and then not long after leaving Harry is missing in action on the Western Front. Not long after Margot discovers she is pregnant. The second secret of the story.
Just a teenager, just a child, the daughter of a respectable vicar, Margot must give up her baby, her son, to be adopted by her parents and raised as her little brother.
Margot is such a relatable character. I really felt for her, felt her pain, her anguish, her torment in losing her love to the war and having to give up her son. She lives away for two years but is now home for Christmas. The first Christmas after The Great War. Harry is back too.
It is so hard for Margot returning home. She finds it hard to navigate her parents, her siblings and her baby. She struggles to talk to Harry who she loves and who clearly adores her too. They are so obviously in love, I was rooting for them as they tried to piece their relationship back together amidst the aftermath of war and Margot knows she must tell him about their son.
This is a hugely emotive story. Set against a backdrop of life during & after the war the characters face the intricacies of large family life, forbidden love, family secrets, teenage pregnancy, adoption, grief, forgiveness. The story shows how different people are building a new life after loss, rebuilding lives, families & relationships after the war.
The descriptions of grief and in particular of losing a child really really hit me hard as a bereaved mummy.
This book is also a wonderful window to life on the time of the First World War. I loved reading about village life, church life, family life at the time.
I enjoyed reading about how the girls worried that they would never marry as there were not enough men to go round.
I loved learning about dance cards and chaperones, parlour games and Christmas traditions and celebrations post the Great War.
I loved the gentle sensitive portrayal of soldiers returning from the war and struggling to settle back into civilian life, struggling with their mental health.
The book is so beautifully written and works as brilliant historical fiction and a heartwarming story of love and hope and family.
I also liked following Margot’s journey and I am grateful to Sally Nicholls for the following two quotes, that say so well how I often feel x
“I’ll have others, she told herself, willing herself not to cry, wondering how anyone could ever have thought that a comfort. No matter what other babies she had, none of them would be this one.”
“You never stop minding … You just learn to live with the space where they used to be.”
A simply lovely book x
The Silent Stars Go By is definitely a book for older readers.
This is one I have read for me and that I will share with my children as they enter the realms of Young Adult fiction.
A brilliant and beautiful story that moved me deeply and will stay with me always.
The perfect bridge between Remembrance and Christmas.