After all the media hype over the discovery of this manuscript following the author's tragic death, I was really looking forward to reading this book. Alas, this was one of the most boring and difficult books I've attempted to read in the past few years.

I don't know if something was lost in translation, but the prose was flat, dull and the characters were not likeable. I tried, giving it the 100 page rule, but in the end I put it back in the bag and took it back to the bookstore to exchange.

I think the backstory of the author's experience, her deportation to Auschwitz and subsequent death, and then the 'discovery' of this manuscript would have made for a more interesting novel. Perhaps others will enjoy this, but it didn't live up to the hype for me.

I had high expectations for this book. Several times in the beginning I almost quit reading it. I found the book to be hard to follow and not very captivating. However, the last 100 - 150 pages did get better. At the end of the book I did find myself satisfied and glad I had read it. All in all it was a good glimpse of a very difficult time in history.

This was a very powerful read for me. Nemirovsky's prose is so beautiful and full; she wrote with such detail that I could picture the characters in my mind just perfectly. The little twist at the end really caught me off guard and made the awful situation all the more real. I loved this book and it will be on my mind long after I've shipped it away to another reader.

It is a work of fiction, but sometimes reads like non-fiction. I found myself absorbed in it. Yes, it is an incomplete work. It is tragic that the author was killed before it could be completed. I found it to be a fascinating glimpse into the personal horrors and human reactions to war. The appendices tell the rest of the story, and that story is true and more tragic than anything the author could have penned.

If you are looking for a classic start-to-finish novel, this is probably not going to be a satisfying read. If you are a WWII history buff, this story about the German conquest/occupation of France will not disappoint you. I personally loved it and finished it in only two days. I could not put it down.

I though it was an extraordinary and sensitive book written in the middle of the horrors of world word 2. Remarkable awareness of the human condition by a relatively young woman. Obviously a highly intelligent and well educated woman.

Though not a finished novel, to me it felt complete and highly satisfying. It amazes me that other reviewers have said they could "not get into it". I could not put it down and ready it in two sittings.

Great fiction, great writer.

I really wanted to like this book more then I did. I initially picked it up after learning of the adversity the author went through in real life and the discovery of her manuscript years later. The book, however, left me feeling flat. There was such much description of the characters and setting yet still I felt something was left out. I usually love books that do not just read straight through begin to end of a single main character, but the bouncing back and forth in the first half of the book was hard to follow when the characters did not leave a strong enough impression for me to remember them later on. The second half of the book almost completely ignores the previous people that I kept wondering when would we go back to them. Then the book just ends. I'm still glad I read it but I it left me unsettled, not deep in thought, but emptied.

I'd had this book on my WL for so long that I gave in an ordered it from amazon.com. I enjoyed it, it's a clear portrait of the beginning of the German occupation of Paris in 1940--and it's a real shame that the remainder of Nemirovsky's manuscripts for what was to have been a 4-part novel were lost. Worth reading for the snapshot into a unique time it offers.

I am putting this book up after 143 pages. I need Cliff Notes - I am beyond lost!!! I bought it in the bookstore after reading so many reviews in the NY Times - I hope the next reader understands it better or can make out what is going on. Best of Luck & Happy Reading!!

Slightly heavy book about various and interesting French characters during WWII, showing the mentality of a Nazi occupied population. There are some light points and funny turns for some characters. Heavy on the details and found that I needed to review chracater traits once we returned to the person/group.

Interesting, but don't need to read again!

A thought provoking book. One that will last in my thoughts for some time. The characters were very strong, the history assumed. Even writing in 1941 the author appeared to have a grasp on what history would be written and therefore not have to be spelled out in her story leaving plenty of space for character building. So to speak.

How ironic her own life and the life of her children were caught up in the very history she wrote about. "Write about what you know," my English teachers always said....

The interesting point of this book is that, although born to Jewish parents, this woman and her family were practicing Catholics in France at the time of Hitler's German occupation. It made no difference. (Not a spoiler alert, you should know that.)

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I did not know a grandmother in this world could refuse food ,shelter and love to two orphaned grandaughters. This is truly a cautionary tale of a world going mad before our eyes only we cannot believe what we are seeing. I am so glad this work of literature was found after so many years. This joins "The Diary of Anne Frank" as an unforgetable story of the very good and the very bad to be found in the human race.

Amazing book!!!

"I must create something great and stop wondering if there's any point."
-Irene Nemirovsky

Irene Nemirovsky, a famous writer living in Paris, intended to write a novel containing five distinct sections about World War II. The first two novellas were written as the war evolved in the early 1940s. But, the rest she never finished.

Storms in June tells the amazing journey of men and women as they fled from Paris the night before the Germans occupied the city. The frenzied perspective of this historic event flutters from one character to another the way a leaf is carried by the wind. The panic and fragmented stories of a vast number of characters reflects the shattered disconnection the people felt as they fled in fear. While many of these characters are selfish and unlikeable, Nemirovsky writes their stories with intense humanity.

The second quieter novella, Dolce, tells about the German occupation of a small French village. Many of the soldiers lived in the homes of the villagers, where their meals were shared and their lives became intertwined. Lucile, one of the villagers, is living in her mother-in-law's home while her husband is a prisoner of the war. A German soldier comes to live with them and, despite the tense wariness the presence of the enemy derives, Lucile finds herself inappropriately drawn to him. Amazingly, Nemirovsky wrote these stories with contemplative reflection while they were occurring around her.

While Suite Francaise is intense and beautifully written, Storms in June is a bit disjointed and Dolce moves rather slowly. It is a rough draft. In fact, the story behind the book may be slightly more interesting than the book itself. Irene Nemirovsky was writing this book when she was sent to Auschwitz. The book includes two appendices that are quite fascinating. The first includes her plans for the remaining three parts of the book. This appendix shows the inner workings of her writing process and gives the reader an idea of the direction she was taking the book and it's apparent in her notes that revisions would have been made to the Storms in June and Dolce as well. The second appendix includes correspondence between Nemirovsky's husband and friends after she was taken to Auschwitz. They clearly illustrate the panicked anguish her husband felt before he, too, was taken to concentration camp. Both Irene and her husband were killed. If you pick this book up, do not skip the appendices. They are quite compelling.

Irene Nemirovsky's daughters didn't read the unfinished manuscript of Suite Francaise, believing it to be a journal and thus too painful to read. When it was discovered to be a manuscript, some 60 years later, it was subsequently published and has been a national bestseller. It's worth reading.

I enjoyed this book about life in France during the early years of WWII.

I also had a hard time getting into this book and actually never finished it. I don't feel I missed out on anything.

I had a really hard time sticking with this book. It did not keep my attention very well, and I had a hard time getting into it. I made myself finish it, but am not sure it was really worth it. There were parts that were interesting or thought-provoking, it was just hard for me to get through the other stuff to those parts.

Very poignant.

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