"Birdsong" by Sebastian Faulks

Sebastian Faulks, "Birdsong", Vintage Books, 2014 (orig. pub. 1993), 4/5 stars

Set before and during the great war, Birdsong captures the drama of that era on both a national and personal scale. It is the story of Stephen, a young Englishman, who arrives in Amiens in 1910. Over the course of the novel he suffers a series of traumatic experiences, from the clandestine love affair that tears apart the family with whom he lives, to the unprecedented experiences of the war itself. (Goodreads)

This book started out very strongly with a beautiful love story and stunning writing. I was intrigued from the beginning while wondering how this was going to turn into a story about World War I. 

Eventually, the war started and I was happy to see that the beautiful writing continued. Some scenes were amazing and literally took my breath away; others - I must admit - didn't really catch my attention. My reading of this book became a longing for those beautiful scenes that I knew would come, and they did come. 

This is exactly what my reading experience of this book was like. Some parts deserved 5 stars while others deserved no more than 3; however, there wasn't one point in this story where I wasn't interested to know what would happen next. I did question some of the characters' decisions and behaviour, and that combined with some of the story's weaker parts make me rate it 4 stars - but all in all, I really do think this is a beautiful book worth the read!