Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

[lightreads]

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I can’t talk about this book. Which is a problem, because all I really want to do is shake people violently by the shoulders and shout at them about it.

It’s – okay, bring on the empty useless NY Times review vocabulary – it’s extraordinary. Searing. By which I mean it hurt like hell, and the mark is going to be there for a while. It got me early, somewhere around "I have two weeks. You’ll shoot me at the end no matter what I do.” It spit me back out a day and a half later, adrenalized and exhausted, sitting on a train pressed and primped for court and biting hard into my hand to stop myself crying too much.

Okay. Actual useful content. Though like I said, you want to go into this knowing as little as possible. At least one publisher’s summary I’ve seen would be too spoilery, in my opinion. This is a war story set in England and France in the early 1940’s. A women's war story. Only not like that. Crap. Okay. Start over.

It’s about resistance, and breaking resistance, and torture and terror,
,and flying planes at night with no lights and no maps,,,, and doing what you have to do when there are no options left,, and being best friends with the girl who is nothing like you, and guys, seriously, it brings the ladies like the ladies have rarely been brought.

It is an emotional wallop, but it is also subtle, meticulous, beautifully written, and Wein’s afterword puts such a perfect thematic capstone on this sort of fictionalized history. This book told the truth, heh, yes it did.

*hand gestures* Just. Go read it so I can stop being pointlessly vague and I’ll have people to talk to about it.




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spoilers in comments even more than usual.

Comments

[ecaterin]

Holy shit, Light. .....how can I NOT go read this book after that????

[livingbyfiction]

On it.

P.S. Ivan was exactly what I needed that day. Thanks!

[metaphortunate]

My god, it was fantastic. I almost am not sure what to say about it other than that.

I did not guess any of it. I need to reread it. Except I haven't done that yet, because OW.

Oh, the German girl.

[cyphomandra]

I am not reading this at all (well, past the title), because my copy is currently in the mail between the UK and my place, and I'm having enough trouble waiting already!

[cofax7]

Yes, to all of that. Such a splendid book.

[marycontrary]

Rachel Manija read it, if you want to read her review/comment?
http://rachelmanija.livejournal.com/tag/author%3A%20wein%20elizabeth

I'll keep it in mind for the next time I want a book to hurt me. Thank you for the review.

[yunitsa]

God, I loved this book. I tore through it in complete absorption, staying up far too late to find out what would happen next, and then I got to the end and suddenly I was sitting there weeping.

Also: I was convinced for about the first 20% that there was some sort of identity switcharoo coming, and she was actually Maddie. - I was convinced of this too.

[treewishes]

I have unfortunately read too many reviews about this book already to actually read it. But am now reconsidering!

[cahn]

AHHHHH THIS BOOK.

FLY THE PLANE, MADDIE.

Just. Just the detail and the awesome women friendship and ANNA ENGEL and AAAAAH.

And KISS ME HARDY and I didn't stop crying from there until the end.

So you read my review and skygiant's review, right? I love what she says about Verity being the female version of Lord Peter, and that is why I DID NOT SEE IT COMING even though I kind of sort of knew it was coming because a) ELIZABETH WEIN and b) it's telegraphed pretty hard, because Lord Peter always saves the day and lives for the sequel! Also, because of skygiants it is now forever in my headcanon that in fact the Bloody British Intelligence Operator is indeed Lord Peter.

And I must have seen three? reviews before I read it that Verity is an unreliable narrator, and I really wish I hadn't known that before I went in. But I still loved it.

[eagle]

Thank you so much for the recommendation. I just finished it last night. That's one of the best books I've ever read.