Book · 2015
The Nightingale
by Kristin Hannah
Two sisters in occupied France choose different wars — one hides a child in her farmhouse, the other guides Allied airmen over the Pyrenees.
What does Reddit think of The Nightingale?
The top comment doesn't hedge: "It makes you ugly cry" (↑147). Others pair it with The Great Alone and All the Light You Cannot See as the go-to trio for "a good cry" (↑32), or list it next to 11/22/63 and Atmosphere on best-of roundups (↑44). The dissent is about craft, not content. One commenter calls the five-star Amazon consensus "nonsense," arguing the book "wasn't well written and was badly in need of an editor" (↑29) — a minority position, but the only real pushback in the sample. Mentions spiked to 36 in 2024 after sitting near 20 for years, then dropped to 12 in 2025.
Community feedback & reader fit
Themes
- · WWII sisters and resistance
- · catharsis through crying
- · book-club comfort read
- · prose quality contested
Common praise
- + The top comment is a two-word verdict: it "makes you ugly cry" (↑147).
- + Readers pair it with The Great Alone and All the Light You Cannot See as the reliable trio when someone asks for a good cry (↑32).
- + One reader says finishing it recently left them crying several times, not just once (↑42).
Common criticism
- − One commenter calls the five-star Amazon consensus "nonsense" and says the book needed an editor (↑29).
Who it's for
Ask for this one specifically when you want to cry, not when you want prose to admire — the top comment in the data is exactly that blunt (↑147). Readers who already loved The Great Alone or All the Light You Cannot See will recognize the register immediately (↑32). If clean, tightly edited sentences matter more to you than plot, at least one reader in the sample thinks the opposite is true here, calling it in need of an editor (↑29).
Mentions over time
Top subreddits
Which Reddit comments matter for The Nightingale?
Top-upvoted quotes across the subreddits where this book is mentioned. Click through to read the full thread.
“The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. It makes you ugly cry
“I'm going to regret not checking my Goodreads because I know I'm going to forget something important, but I feel like it's worthwhile to do this without reference so I don't overthink it. So here are my 10 best that came to mind 1st! 1. Beartown by Frederick Backman 2. The Thief by Megan Whalen Tur…
“Don’t judge me but Midnight Sun by Stephenie Meyer, it was a fun escape from the world for a while and it reminded me of when I was in middle school. Sometimes you need some twilight in your life My other favorites have been The Nightingale by Kristen Hannah, The Devil all the Time by Donald Ray P…
“The Nightingale – Kristin Hannah 11/22/63 – Stephen King Atmosphere – Taylor Jenkins Reed
“The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah. Finished it recently, cried several times.
“The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah is amazing! If you liked The Great Alone you will love The Nightingale. Also All the Light You Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. So good and had a good cry from both.
“The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah has over 100,000 reviews on Amazon and is rated 5 stars. What nonsense! While there was much to like in the novel, it wasn’t well written and was badly in need of an editor.
“The nightingale by Kristin Hannah
Convinced? Pick up The Nightingale
What else does r/suggestmeabook read?
Other books mentioned in the same sub, ranked. Shared-sub overlap with this title breaks ties.
Project Hail Mary
Andy Weir
A high-school teacher wakes up alone on a spaceship with no memory of how he got there and one job left: save Earth.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
J. K. Rowling
A neglected eleven-year-old discovers he belongs to a hidden magical world, enters Hogwarts, and learns that wonder carries history and danger with it.
All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries)
Martha Wells
A security robot hacks its own governor module, gains free will, and spends its days streaming soap operas instead of killing anyone.
Mistborn: The Final Empire
Brandon Sanderson
A street thief gets recruited into a heist crew plotting to overthrow a god-emperor who has ruled unchallenged for a thousand years.
Circe
Madeline Miller
An exiled witch on a deserted island turns men into pigs and spends three thousand years deciding what she actually wants.
The Count of Monte Cristo
Alexandre Dumas
A framed sailor rots in an island prison for fourteen years, escapes with a fortune, and spends the rest of the book collecting on every debt of vengeance.
The Nightingale — frequently asked
Is The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah worth reading if I want a good cry?+
Yes — this is close to the consensus use case in the data. The top-voted comment (↑147) says flatly that it "makes you ugly cry," and it gets paired with The Great Alone and All the Light You Cannot See as the standard trio for that exact request (↑32).
Is The Nightingale well written?+
Contested. One commenter (↑29) pushes back hard on the five-star consensus, calling it "nonsense" and saying the book was badly in need of an editor. That's the only real craft criticism in the sample, but it's a pointed one against an otherwise emotionally positive reception.
What subreddit talks about The Nightingale the most?+
r/suggestmeabook, exclusively — all 156 tracked mentions come from there, with zero crossover into r/Fantasy or r/printSF. It's a book-club and comfort-read recommendation, not a genre-community one.
Why did mentions of The Nightingale spike in 2024?+
The data shows 36 mentions in 2024 against a run of roughly 17-26 in the years before it, then a drop to 12 in 2025 — a one-year bump rather than a sustained rediscovery, though the sample doesn't specify a cause.