Birdsong

Birdsong
Sebastian Faulks
1993
5/5
BBC Top 100 Books - Number 13

 It is very rare for a book to bring me to tears or cause me emotional pain, this is one of these books. The naive optimism before the battle of the Somme made me want to scream at the characters in the book to warn them not to go over the top.

I loved how this book switched between a pre-war love affair, the horrors of World War 1, and the story of a young woman trying to understand what her grandfather had experienced during this war.

Sebastian Faulks has created characters that feel very real, he makes the read feel their joy, their sorrow, their fear and their pain. I couldn't put this book down and felt emotionally drained after reading it.