Carrie Schmidt's Reviews > Every Time We Say Goodbye

“Who knew making movies could be such a blood sport?”

I first met Vivien Lowry in Bloomsbury Girls and found her to be equal parts tragic and vibrant as a character, so I was very intrigued by what kind of journey Natalie Jenner would take her on in Every Time We Say Goodbye. (Note: it’s not necessary to have read the other books in this series to follow this third book. It works just fine as a standalone, though some of its references to the other books may have you bumping them up to the top of your TBR list!

There are several plot threads that weave through the pages of Every Time We Say Goodbye, spanning a variety of personalities across two timelines a little more than ten years apart, and presenting readers with a profound study in contrasts. On the one hand you have the glitz and glory of the Italian film industry, ushered into its heyday as American directors, actors, writers, etc fled the fear-mongering of the McCarthy era for the freedom found in Italy. Freedom from the anti-Communist witch hunts, though, came with strings attached – strings held by the Vatican who kept tight control over what could & couldn’t be portrayed in movies (more than one very weighty & timeless contrast there). And then there are the WW2 Italian resistance fighters, the refugees of war, the soldiers haunted by images they can’t forget, and the families left without answers. A world away from the film industry in many respects and inseparable from it in others. I loved these contrasts – and others – that Jenner captures so vividly, and I often caught myself thinking about the poetry of them as I read this moving story.

I enjoyed seeing famed film stars of the day like a young Sophia Loren, Ava Gardner, and Gina Lollobrigida as ‘regular’ people (while still being set apart… another contrast) and getting an inside look at the workings of a movie studio in the 1950s in post-war Italy. But really this is just the canvas on which Jenner paints a poignant picture of grief, love, faith, and friendship -the means that connects the main players whose paths otherwise would not have crossed. The real story in Every Time We Say Goodbye is of brave women who dare to do courageous things. Whether they gave up their life, their love, their child, their career, their dreams, or even their regrets, I was fascinated by these vibrant characters who dared to do what was right for the sake of more than just themselves. This, to me, is the strength of Jenner’s latest novel and what kept me turning the pages.

Bottom Line: Nothing about Every Time We Say Goodbye played out the way I expected it to but the story ended up being so much more meaningful because of the unexpected turns it took. As with the other book I have read by Natalie Jenner, I closed this one with a deep sense of thoughtfulness, pondering the lessons can be gleaned as well as their continued relevance. I enjoyed reacquainting myself with Vivien and other familiar faces from Bloomsbury Girls, and I equally enjoyed the parade of new personalities that Vivien encounters in the world of Italian cinema. Some parts of the novel dragged a bit in the middle, in my opinion, overladen with more telling than showing, but not so much that I lost interest in the overall story. Mainly due to the fascinating profile of the young, female assassin for the Italian Resistance – it completely captivated me, and I loved the way that Jenner intersects this character with Vivien’s story too. Another meticulously researched and immersive novel from a rising star in historical fiction.

Reviewer’s Note: Followers of my reviews may want to be aware that there is some occasional, mild cursing (plus one profanity), innuendo, and non-explicit closed-door implications of extra-marital intimacies.

(I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book)

first reviewed at Reading Is My SuperPower