Code Name Verity (Code Name Verity, #1) in Reading with Style

Sep 27, 2013 Wendy rated it really liked it

Shelves: ya-mg, historical-fiction, world-war-ii, printz-award, girls-rock-the-boys, edgar-award

I went into this book fully expecting to love it or loath it...so I'm quite surprised that I don't feel passionately about it either way. Or perhaps I do feel passionately in BOTH ways, therefor those emotions just cancel each other out.

Well, that's all very vague and unhelpful, isn't it?

First, what I liked. As a history geek and all-around obsessive of WWII reading material, I will always be intrigued by a story about female pilots & spies in/over occupied France. I also like dark stories, and I went into this book fully expecting to love it or loath it...so I'm quite surprised that I don't feel passionately about it either way. Or perhaps I do feel passionately in BOTH ways, therefor those emotions just cancel each other out.

Well, that's all very vague and unhelpful, isn't it?

First, what I liked. As a history geek and all-around obsessive of WWII reading material, I will always be intrigued by a story about female pilots & spies in/over occupied France. I also like dark stories, and this is probably as dark as a book FOR teens about a teen girl being tortured is "allowed" to be. Also, the opening. I loved the part-snarky, part-terrified, wholly unreliable narrator's voice in the first chapter. At the time I was also reading The Collector by John Fowles (odd pairing, I KNOW) which also happens to revolve around a woman held captive against her will. And I thought, wow, Verity could be an amazing character in what was promising to be a taught psychological thriller.

But this isn't a psychological thriller, as it turns out. That probably would have been too DARK for a novel aimed at young adults. And (this is me being selfish, now) I really wish it hadn't been written for young adults. This is because it takes a dark, complex, insanely tense concept, simplifies much of the really INTERESTING complex material, and spins it out into a sort of rah-rah-hear-me-roar buddy story. And the buddy story didn't work for me at all because we readers are expected to ASSUME that the emotional connection between the characters exists--we're told that they are friends, even though they have nothing in common and barely spend more than a scene together in the entire book. The epistolary format, while exceedingly CLEVER with regards to the plot, distanced me even further. The novel opens with our young spy "Verity" drafting her memoirs/confession to appease her torturers. She then tells the story in an odd, omniscient voice, refers to herself constantly in the third person, and relates information she could never possibly have known...like what her friend Maddy thought about those onion sandwiches that one time. (view spoiler)

So while I started this book on a wave of enthusiasm, about 100 pages in my interest began to wane. This book has many things going for it. Verity is snarkily hilarious even at her most dire moments. The bigger plot set-up is CLEVER as all shite. It is also incredibly well-researched. But it is not a tense, gripping read, nor is it particularly believable. There's just no way Verity's gestapo torturers are going to put up with her Sherezade-inspired blathering. The middle of the book consists of a whole lot of highly accurate period detail (especially with regards to planes, Lysander bombers in particular, and little plot advancement. I found myself more interested in HOW the clever diary pages were laid out, and why some bits were underlined or what the little notations meant, than in the characters. Because having a compelling voice is not quite the same as having a compelling character, and Verity (it pains me to say) is a bit of a Mary Sue. By the end, the novel's climax felt rather anticlimactic and didn't hit me particularly hard because I didn't feel like I knew the characters or understood the source of their relationship to begin with.

Still, I'm glad I read it. This is absolutely the book I wanted to read (and write myself) when I was 16, and I wish I could send a copy through a time-warp postal system to my teenage self. She would have loved it, and nerd that she was, likely would have texted back through the time-portal to say that all that psychological stuff is overrated, and bring on all the minutiae about planes!

P.S. Sorry, I can't seem to avoid CAPITALIZING my words for EMPHASIS. Curse you, YA fiction and your cute little affectations! ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Aug 31, 2014 Tanya Patrice rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audiobooks, audiobook-is-better

Definitely get the audiobook of Code Name Verity, because the narrators are just so amazing. They take you deep into the story, first, hearing from "Verity" who has been captured by the Gestapo, and then later, we get "Maddie's side, who is her best friend, and a female pilot.

Code Name Verity gave me all the feels - and some of those feelings, I didn't want to have. It was super-sad to know that Verity was tortured, and that she might not live. I don't like sad books and generally avoid them lik ...more

Like · see review

Oct 30, 2013 Jayme(theghostreader) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: library-books-read

This book was confusing at first to grasp. I liked the characters of Julie and Maddie. I liked their friendship and the dedication Maddie had to find Julie aka Verity. I felt bad for Julie and I didn't understand why she was being interrogated. I understand she was an Allied pilot but in one section where her interrogator received a letter from Hitler, Hitler really wanted her dead. It just seemed extreme.
I liked the back story of the two main character more than the parts with Julie in the pri ...more

Like · see review