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Feb 10, 2012

Diana rated it:

Amazing! Two young women behind enemy lines in WWII. Edge of the seat suspense. Unreliable narrator. Unforgettable characters; a pilot and a spy. Gestapo torture. French resistance. Resonating with truth. Tears in my ears from crying while reading it in bed (in the middle of the night).

3 comments like (6 people liked it)

Feb 17, 2012

meeners rated it:

stunning. enthralling and brilliant and heartbreaking. ELIZABETH WEIN, WHY ARE YOU SO GOOD. i love books like these - where the form is necessary to the content, where the writing is not a performance but a craft. it's not just being clever, it's being...true to the story you want to tell, and the voices who end up telling it. verity indeed!

example: <spoiler>like the first half of the novel, which works to ramp up the tension - is she lying or is she not? what is the point of thi More...

3 comments like (4 people liked it)

Feb 21, 2012

Sheena rated it:

Heartbreaking. That's the word that describes this book. Code Name Verity is the story of two women, Maddie and her friend. Maddie is a pilot for England during World War II who does mostly transport flights. Her friend is a spy, working to gain intelligence to be used against Hitler and his Nazi thugs. When she is captured by the Gestapo in occupied France she must find the courage to give the German's what they want. She faces torture and certain death. To tell her tale she tells Maddie's. As More...

5 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 18, 2012

Estara rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

19 comments like (3 people liked it)

Feb 15, 2012

Angela rated it:

Received an Advanced Readers Copy at ALA MidWinter. Very intrigued.

I felt like this book took me a long time to finish - not just because it has a lot of pages. The story seemed to stall several times along the way. However, since the objective of the main character is to stall, to stave off her own torture or execution, I accepted the interuptions. And by the end I was fully invested in Maddie and Verity, crying through the last pages. I am glad to see a story focus on this uni More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 02, 2012

Chachic rated it:

Originally posted here.

Elizabeth Wein is one of my favorite authors and I was thrilled when I discovered that she's releasing a new book this year, even if it's not one of her Aksumite books. Code Name Verity is one of my most anticipated 2012 titles. It's already available from the Book Depository and will be released in the US in May. Before I started reading this, I was warned by the author herself to have a box of tissues within reach. I'm usually not a fan of war novels but sinc More...

27 comments like (7 people liked it)

Feb 21, 2012

Hannah rated it:

A plane goes down in Nazi-occupied France. The pilot (who should never have been flying the mission to being with) and the lone passenger are best friends. One of them is rescued by the French Resistance. The other--code named "Verity"--is captured by the Germans. She has a choice: collaborate with her captors by sharing sensitive information, or continue undergoing horrific torture. The novel is her confession, written on sheet music, old recipe cards, and any other paper she can find More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Feb 20, 2012

Richie rated it:

Richie's Picks: CODE NAME VERITY by Elizabeth Wein, Hyperion, May 2012, 352p., ISBN: 978-1-4231-5219-4

"Maddie, lucky beast, did not have to endure any of this. Maddie just picked up her ferry chit as usual from the Oakway Operations hut, grinned at the 'S' and the destination 'RAF Buscot' because it meant she'd get to share a cup of tea with her best friend at some point in the next twenty-four hours, and walked out to the Puss Moth with her gas mask and her flight bag. It was r More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 18, 2012

Betsy rated it:

Code Name Verity is an extraordinary book. After I read it the first time, I immediately reread it to see all the little clues and it was just as interesting the second time. I understand why the person who recommended it to me said it was the best book she had ever read.

In addition, my husband - who never wants to read any "children's books" - saw that there was a British connection and picked it up on his own to start reading. When he had only gone partially through it I More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 06, 2012

Yune rated it:

I'm not sure why I didn't count Wein as one of my favorite authors before, but she's firmly in that category now: her books twist you up inside and linger. I read this last night and woke up this morning still thinking about it, still haunted. (And yet there is always a burnishing of hope in her works. I feel wrenched but not wretched, possibly because her characters are such survivors.)

It begins with the most unreliable of narrators: a British female spy being tortured and interroga More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 28, 2012

Danica rated it:

I give high marks to any book that makes me cry, and boy, did this book make me cry. Scratch that, this book made me sob for the better part of an hour.

Now, don't get me wrong. I didn't immediately fall in love with this book. In fact, I spent the better part of the first 100 pages skimming and wishing "Verity" would get to the good part of her story. I almost put the book down for good at that point, but I was compelled. I wanted to find out what happened to "Ver More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Feb 19, 2012

Amy (Turn the Page) rated it:

My poor heart.

8 comments like (2 people liked it)

Oct 06, 2011

Manda rated it:

This is a gem of a book.

Published in February 2012 by Egmont Books, this is a Young Adult novel, but definitely one that adults will read unashamedly - they won't have to bring it out in 'adult-look' covers to get people over 21 to pick it up: you'll want to anyway.

It's a WWII novel, set in Britain and France and detailing the events of two women, one in the ATA (air transport auxiliary) and one in the SOE (special operations executive - the spies who were sent into oc More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Feb 03, 2012

Shellie rated it:

Best book I have read in a long time! I loved this book! As a die hard fan of anything light, fun, and romantic, this is not a typical read for me, however, I was hooked from page one. It is hard to give a review about this book without giving away too much of the plot, but I do have to say YOU SHOULD READ IT! It is good in the way Twilight or the Hunger Games was good, not that it has anything in common with those books plot wise, but when they were recommended to me I read the backs and wa More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 01, 2012

Sarah rated it:

4.5

Two girls - Maddie, a working class Mancunian with an interest in engines and airplanes, and 'Verity', an educated and refined lady from one of the most noble houses of Scotland - meet during the early days of WWII and become best friends. Despite the limited opportunities for women at the time, they both distinguish themselves and quickly find their niches in the war effort - Maddie as a civilian pilot, and Verity as an intelligence agent.

After gaining the respect More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Feb 03, 2012

Sarah rated it:

3.5 stars

Verity was sent to France as a spy but ended up captured by the Gestapo, after weeks of torture she finally broke and agreed to tell them what she knew of the British War Effort. Her story starts with the pilot who flew her to France - her close friend Maddie. Verity tells the tale of how she and Maddie became unlikely friends and the events that led to her own capture.

Code Name Verity is a heart-breaking tale of two incredibly strong women and the part they bo More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 22, 2012

Emily rated it:

I have a feeling I'm not going to be very popular by posting this review, everyone seems to love this book so far and I feel more disappointed in myself and my tastes than the novel or the author. Code Name Verity is one of those books that are the reason why I created the shelf its-me-not-you. I mentioned this very recently in my review of The Book Of Blood And Shadow and it is also similar to the experience I had trying to read The Book Thief and Feed. I just found 90% of the book long-w More...

0 comments like (8 people liked it)

Feb 06, 2012

Angela rated it:

At first, the premise of this book bothered me. Women were going around acting in roles I assumed would have been impossible at the time. In fact, for a while I wondered if this was supposed to be set in an alternative universe. So it kind of blew my mind to read at the end that almost every event in the book had happened, in some form--that there really were women pilots and agents. I had never realized how much women could contribute to the war effort in 1949. You always hear about women growi More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 16, 2012

Jan rated it:

This wonderful World War II historical novel has a gripping narrative that will keep you compulsively reading. It is told in two parts. The first part is told by "Verity," an aristocratic Scottish woman agent working in France who has been captured by the Gestapo and is being interrogated. After enduring torture and appalling conditions, she is now confessing her role as an enemy agent. But we hear much more than just a confession of what she was told to do. She writes of her life More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 13, 2012

Anne rated it:

Set during World War II this is a unique and imaginative Young Adult read. Verity and her friend Maddie are close friends. It's unlikely that without the War their paths would have crossed, coming from such different backgrounds, but War has brought them together.
The story opens with Verity being interrogated by the Gestapo, she's been captured and tortured, and is about to spill the secrets of the Allied Forces. Verity chooses to write her confession down, in detail, and it is in this More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 08, 2012

Krystal rated it:

World War II will never be forgotten. This fictional tale takes the reader to WWII and introduces history in an entirely new way. Verity was captured by the Gestapo on a mission in France for the Allies. An expert actress with a can-do attitude and a mastery of the French and German languages, Verity was thought to be the perfect candidate for the mission that went so horribly wrong. While writing her confession for the Gestapo, Verity tells the story of her friendship with the fem More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 08, 2012

Maureen rated it:

I've been an Elizabeth Wein fan for long enough that when I heard about Code Name Verity, I knew I was going to be buying it. And when I heard that it was being published in February in the UK and May in the US, I knew I was going to be buying it from the UK. Which I did, and it came Saturday night and I wasn't going to read it, but then I started and literally didn't put it down, including when I was unloading and loading the dishwasher, until I was done.

And then I spent the next hou More...

5 comments like (3 people liked it)

Feb 10, 2012

TheBookSmugglers rated it:

1943, England and France. Maddie and her best friend Queenie (“Verity”) are a sensational team, a pair of unlikely best friends. One: an English commoner, a pilot for the ATA (Air Transport Auxiliary) with a passion for flying and a penchant for mechanics. Two: a Scottish aristocrat, a spy with a way with words, working with the SOE (Special Operations Executive). Both: doing their part for the British War Effort.

No. No, no, no. Wait a minute. I am doing this wrong. Let me start agai More...

5 comments like (5 people liked it)

Feb 09, 2012

Tanita rated it:

Thought it was amazing. Hope it's a big hit in the States, am sure that it'll be all over the awards here, too.

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Feb 11, 2012

Joy rated it:

My only complaint about this book was how hard it was to read the last 75 pages while crying.

Really moving, engrossing historical fiction about two women best friends, one a pilot and one a spy, during World War II. The narrative unfolds very cleverly: <spoiler>the further you read, the more you realize how unreliable the narrator is, and the more you guess at what might be going on behind that narrative.</spoiler> Wein's writing evokes the horrors of wartime, the intensity More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Feb 10, 2012

Celine marked it as to-read

Going on the tbr because of this Booksmugglers review

4 comments like

Feb 21, 2012

Carla rated it:

lets just say I spent a large majority of last night completely hysterical, curled into the fetal position, making noises dying animals make. and now I want to cry again DAMMIT. kiss me hardy and make it quick.

6 comments like (5 people liked it)

Feb 13, 2012

Michelle (Clover Hill Book Reviews) rated it:

http://cloverhillbookreviews.blogspot.co...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Jul 17, 2011

Sara rated it:

Twas good. But I have to say that, don't I?

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 05, 2012

elissa marked it as to-read

Cool! A new novel by Wein!

0 comments like (2 people liked it)