“The Girl You Left Behind” by Jojo Moyes – Partners through Centuries

The year is 1916, and Sophie must contend with her husband departing for the French front of WWI, leaving nothing but a portrait of her he painted before becoming a soldier. As fate would have it, the little town Sophie lives in falls to the Germans, and her beauty sparks her downfall as the local German commander starts eyeing her.

Slowly but surely, his obsession with her grows more and more dangerous, to the point where Sophie becomes willing to literally risk it all just to be reunited with her husband once again.

Fast forward to about a hundred years later, that portrait Sophie had with her has been passed down to Liv Halston by her husband right before he died. The quest to find the portrait’s legitimate owner and figure out the story behind it draws Liv and Sophie close together in an unexpected way, putting the former under the ultimate test, forcing her to decide between what she needs and what is right.

Jojo Moyes has crafted a somewhat peculiar love story in The Girl You Left Behind, dividing the book in two parts and linking them in a subtle and, as is revealed later, a very powerful way. She found a way to bring together two characters who lived a hundred years apart, showing how slowly and yet thoroughly life can work at times.

This is the kind of love story with dark and sometimes even grueling undertones, depicting its characters as being able to achieve a higher spiritual and emotional plane only through hardships few could be subjected to.

Speaking of the characters, I found that they were quite well brought to life, each of them being very human and realistic in the sense that there aren’t really many clear-cut good or bad guys.

Most of them are in a moral gray area, having wants, needs, desires, emotions and ideas, some of which cannot be controlled, but all of which are geared towards helping them find happiness.

I have to admit that I wasn’t a huge fan of the second half of the book, the one in which the modern story is presented to us. It felt as if Moyes spent all of her effort on the first half and partially winged it through the second one.

For some reason, it feels as if everything is becoming a bit more tedious, at least until the show really gets going and the battle for the painting’s ownership starts. It’s not that big of a deal though, especially if I, a reader who usually doesn’t like romance stories, can manage to make it through without too much trouble.

All things considered, The Girl You Left Behind is a very solid romance novel, and if you are a fan of the genre rest assured that you are going to be getting the complete experience with this one; the way in which haunting and brutal fates are superimposed with heartwarming moments and breathtaking beauty is something that will mark you for a long time to come.

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Jojo Moyes Personal site Jojo Moyes is an English novelist and journalist hailing from London. She has the distinction of being one of the few authors to have won the Romantic Novel of the Year Award on two occasions, the first time around in 2004 for her novel Foreign Fruit, and once again in 2011 with “The Last Letter From Your Lover”.