Caution - This review does contain spoilers.
Title: The Resistance Girl
Author: Mandy Robotham
Genre: Historical Fiction
Trigger warnings: War, Violence, Childbirth, Death Of A Parent
Rating: ★★★★
As I mentioned in my Mid Year Reading Roundup, Mandy Robotham has firmly taken her place on my list of favourite authors so I'd been dying to read her latest historical fiction work since it's publication in March and I finally got round to it this month.
The Resistance Girl tells the story of Rumi Orlstad, a member of the local resistance in Nazi-occupied Norway who is mourning the death of her fiancé after he drowned whilst operating The Shetland Bus, a special operations run waterway connecting Nazi-occupied Norway and Shetland, Scotland. As part of her resistance work, Rumi finds herself working alongside the half-Norwegian British SOE agent Jens Parkes as he commits acts of sabotage, transmits messages to England and other agents within Norway and works to gain intelligence on Nazi activity within occupied Norway.
As a midwife turned writer, it is understandable that pregnancy and birth play a central role within Many Robotham's novels and The Resistance Girl is no different. Alongside the plotline focusing on the work of the resistance, another strand of the story focuses on the eugenics policy of the Nazis through exploration of the Lebensborn homes in Norway. We meet Anya, a childhood friend of Rumi, who finds herself pregnant after she is sexually assaulted whilst on a date with a German soldier. As Anya is deemed "racially valuable" with her blonde hair and blue eyes, she is sent to a Lebensborn home to await the birth of her child. Rumours of the nature of the program they find themselves in are rife around the mother and baby home and Rumi and Jens find themselves trying to rescue some of the expectant mothers from the home before their babies can be stolen and trafficked back to Germany. I was not previously aware of the existence of Lebensborn homes within Nazi occupied Norway (and naively thought they only existed within Nazi Germany) so this was a really interesting read for me. However I found myself almost craving two independent novels, one exploring the resistance work and one focusing on the lives of the women within the Lebensborn homes as both are plotlines of equal importance who were almost competing for pages within the story.
True to her other novels, how well researched Mandy Robotham was when writing The Resistance Girl is clear throughout the novel through her gorgeous descriptions of the locality. This is something I felt really needed a mention as it was all done remotely due to the pandemic but you could honestly not tell (until you're told in the afterword) that the author had not set foot in the locations she is describing. It is honestly testament to what a wonderful writer Mandy Robotham is.
Whilst I'm singing the praises of her writing ability, I must also mention Mandy Robotham's incredible ability to write strong female characters. In this novel we are blessed with not only a strong female protagonist in Rumi but also with her wonderful mother figure Marjit who is a woman and a half and one of those fictional characters who I'd just love to have dinner with.
I've seen mixed reviews on the romantic nature of this novel with some readers arguing it felt forced and unnecessary. I did find it to be an aspect of the plot I enjoyed and if anything I found the slow pace the blossoming of the romance took to be in keeping with Rumi's character and the grief she was experiencing following the loss of her fiancé. You were able to see Rumi's character and strength progress over the course of the novel and we see her bench any potential feelings for Jens until she feels she is ready to love again.
I did find the first half of the novel lacked pace considerably and I had to really push myself through what felt like a lot of repetition, something which is a rarity with Mandy Robotham's writing. The fast-paced second half did make up for this, however, and I was glad I'd stuck with it.
One of the main criticisms I have of The Resistance Girl is the ending, which is far too clean for my liking. I tend to prefer historical fiction to end in a way which packs a punch and reminds you of the horrors of war, but the ending of The Resistance Girl missed the mark for me here. Despite the situations many of characters found themselves in - which in reality would have almost certainly resulted in death - it was very 'and they all lived happily ever after' and this was a disappointment as we've seen from other Mandy Robotham novels, such as The German Midwife, that she's not afraid to not give her characters a happy ending if it wasn't true to the historical reality.
I also found myself craving more depth to be given to the secondary characters within the story, for example the fisherman and brother-like figure to Rumi named Rubio. It felt like, although his presence is known throughout the novel (albeit on a 'if needs be' basis if anything) and we know of what importance he is to Rumi, we barely know anything about him until the end of the novel.
Although it was not my favourite of Mandy Robotham's novels (that award continues to be held by her debut novel The German Midwife), she has written yet another fantastic historical fiction novel which introduces readers to an aspect of World War Two history which does not get enough attention. I hope this sparks a rise in fiction set in occupied countries outside of western Europe as there really isn't enough of them to share such a fascinating part of history.
Are you a historical fiction fan? If you have any recommendations within the genre please share them in the comments below!
No comments:
Post a Comment