The Blogging of a Book Addict

I bought and read this book after my friend (who is also a book selecting GENIUS) read and reviewed it on her blog (which you can find at http://www.adkwriter15.wordpress.com). She absolutely adored it, and that, coupled with the intriguing nature of the blurb, made me check it out. I AM SO GLAD.

"Code Name Verity" is astounding. It's breathtaking. It's heartbreaking. It is pretty much any adjective you can imagine that is a synonym for "amazing", "emotional", or "honest". It's not perfect. Neither are human beings. And this book is like a human being in so many ways. It lives and breaths all on its own, with a binding for skin and ink for blood.

It is very hard to write distinct, multi-layered characters in a novel. It is even harder to use two POV's and STILL manage to make the two narrators unique from each other. Elizabeth Wein does this FLAWLESSLY. Every character had a reason for being there, a heart and soul and a personality you came to know, whether they were a protagonist, part of the supporting cast, or only mentioned in a few fleeting sentences.

Finally, I can't finish a review of this novel without praising Wein's historical accuracy. I am not a WWII buff, but I feel confident that even if I was I would be astounded by the sheer level of research the author put into this book. Of course, as the "debriefing" at the end notes, it IS fiction, and creative liberties had to be taken, but if you told me everything in this novel really happened, I would have very little difficulty believing you...and that might be one of the highest compliments I can give.