Book Review: The Things We Did For Love by Natasha Farrant

Name: The Things We Did For Love
Author: Natasha Farrant
UK Publishers: Faber
Summary: France: February, 1944.
UK Release Date: March 1st
As war rages in Europe, teenagers Luc and Arianne fall passionately in love.  But German forces are closing in and Luc, desperate to atone for his family's past, is drawn into the dangerous world of the Resistance. Arianne will do almost anything to keep him safe, but someone else is secretly in love with her - someone who will stop at nothing to get rid of his rival...
Review: I'm not usually one for wartime based novels but 'The Things We Did For Love' has completely changed my opinion.
My grandparents survived the war and at school I was always interested in this time. My grandad was an evacuee, he was sent off to the countryside where he would be safe.

He even wrote about his experiences for us to take to school, it was really interesting to read and obviously for me it was really emotional as it's about my grandad.
It was clearly a difficult time to be separated from his family but he was safe. Through out the book I often wondered if I'd have been as strong as Arianne, if I'd have been alive in the 1940s.

At such a young age she's acting like a young woman. In reading this novel you're taken on a rollercoaster ride through many emotions. As a reader you can feel her pain, joy, passion and sadness.This is Natasha Farrant's first YA novel and it centres around the love story of Arianne and Luc.

I love that some of the novel is past and some present by the mysterious person telling us the story. (I didn't expect it to be who it is. I shant spoil for you.)

The imagery is so vivid it makes me feel like I'm actually in the novel, feeling the rollercoaster of emotions that Arianne, Luc, Romy, Solange and Teresa Belleville are feeling.

I immediately loved Arianne although the poor girl can be so naïve, she's just too kind.
Arianne and Luc are the perfect couple but is there really a perfect love and a perfect life?

What I loved about this novel was how real it is.
Natasha doesn't shy away from the brutality of war and how it changes people.
Some for the better some worse.

Luc is your ideal leading man but I'm not completely bowled over with love for him.
However, Luc and Arianne's love is very passionate and fiesty.

There are strong messages of love, passion, jealousy and betrayal within this novel.
As always there is an impending love triangle which results to a huge betrayal.

I also enjoyed Natasha's foreword at the end explaining just how much research went into explaining how life really was back in the 1940s.
I would definitely recommend this wartime based love story.