Between Shades of Gray in Crazy Challenge Connection

Jan 12, 2020 Anne ✨ Finds Joy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorite-fic-hist, historical-fiction

A really powerful, emotional story. Difficult subject matter, but masterfully handled by the author! I'm so impressed with how Ruta Sepetys crafts stories like this that are appropriate for YA audiences, while not shying away from the grim realities of these war histories. She creates such incredible emotional connections between the characters and with the reader.

This historical reference for this story is during WWII 1941-1945, when a huge number of Lithuanians (130,000 people, 70% women and ...more

13 likes · Like · see review

Jul 06, 2017 Chaitra rated it liked it

Shelves: young-adult, world-war-ii, romance, survival, pow-labor-camp

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This book was disappointing. It's such a bleak period of history, and a worthy subject. But, maybe had it not been YA. I mostly don't go in for YA books, although some do surprise me. I thought this maybe one of the books I like, but no.

It could also have been the audio. There are a few times in a day that my 3.5 years old son can't contain his excitement and has to squeal at our cat. Cat hates it and hides under the nearest available table until son has calmed down. Listening to this book, I f This book was disappointing. It's such a bleak period of history, and a worthy subject. But, maybe had it not been YA. I mostly don't go in for YA books, although some do surprise me. I thought this maybe one of the books I like, but no.

It could also have been the audio. There are a few times in a day that my 3.5 years old son can't contain his excitement and has to squeal at our cat. Cat hates it and hides under the nearest available table until son has calmed down. Listening to this book, I felt like our cat. Emily Klein is so shrill that I really wanted to duck under blankets and put earplugs on. With her voice, Lina became even more unbearable than she already was with her actions. There are flashbacks throughout the book, and Klein jumps into them with hardly a pause. The first few times, I had no idea what was happening. Even when I got used to the jumps, it was very annoying.

But no. I liked the author's note at the end. She speaks for example, of inmates of a labor camp stealing a baby's coffin and throwing baby out. They burned the coffin for fuel. This is more the kind of thing I was looking for - the large coffin they make for Elena, and the funeral they have, seems fantastic and wasteful in the face of such a bitter winter and so many people still alive and suffering. Ruta Sepetys also speaks of love and compassion in the midst of so much cruelty and how she wanted to show it. I think it came across in a lot of characters, except for the narrator.

Something about Lina's behavior is very odd - she's not the kind of person I see surviving. I would know, because if I asked myself if I would survive a camp, I wouldn't. Not without a world of attitude adjustment. And I'm like Lina, where shooting off my mouth is concerned. Lina is not generous, she makes judgments very easily, and she begrudges others who have to do things that they do not want to do in order to survive. She's selfish, she's extremely rash and endangers everyone with no thought at all. She hates the Russians, but idiotically refuses to learn Russian. Wouldn't it be easier if she did know and act like she didn't? She'd pick up a whole lot more. She mouths off to NKVD soldiers, and while I don't think it's out of the realm of possibilities, I also think such a person would have a very short life span.

She robs an important document out of an office, and expects her boyfriend to put it back. Not only does she risk her own life and that of her family, but also that of her boyfriend's. Her best friend is Joanna, her cousin, who she adores, etc. throughout the book, but when she finds out that because her parents helped Joanna's family escape, they are in prison, her first thought is for herself. Oh, we lost everything so *they could escape. And later, oh, but Joanna didn't tell me! Yes, like she would announce the fact that she was escaping the country. Not once does she feel happy that Joanna got away. Each time, her younger brother shows the perspective and maturity that Lina lacks, and it got annoying. How many times was she going to be saved because someone else steps in or the NKVD just wouldn't lift their fingers to do anything? I thought her mother was either a saint or entirely stupid - why wouldn't you sit your sixteen year old daughter down and give her some advice when there was the life of a littler one at stake? There's being true to yourself and there's stupidity, and Lina was stupid too often.

This brings me to the YA format. Was the whole thing sanitized because it was written with a younger audience in mind? And there had to be a "strong" heroine? Other people compromise, but Lina never changes, except for one time when she consoles a gray-ish NKVD guy. And even then, it's not like she has a major change of heart. I don't think the author would have had qualms in making Lina do questionable things to survive, had this been an adult book. More people would have died and there would be torture (which is likely more realistic considering Stalin may have killed 20 million people), if this had been an adult book. I wish this was an adult book. But I do appreciate that this is a book that sheds light on an underwritten and worthy topic, and I understand that I'm not the audience for this book, which is why I'm bumping it up a star. That and maybe the physical copy wouldn't have bothered me as much as the narration did.

(On a side note, the writing also annoyed me with how people were referred to - "The Repeater", "The Bald Man", "The Man Who Wound his Watch". You live with them in the same yurta, and you wouldn't refer to them by names? There's something very wrong with that. Not to mention I wanted to tear my hair off every time there was a line about a person with no name). ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Apr 17, 2013 Michelle rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I had to sit and think about what I wanted to write for a day before I actually tried to write this review. I am familiar with most of what happened during the era this book was set in, but I will have to admit that I knew absolutley nothing of what Russia did to those from Lithuania and the other Baltic States. It was absolutley horrifying how these people were treated. I will never be able to understand how another human being can treat another human being like they are nothing more than a com ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Dec 09, 2020 BookishStitcher rated it it was amazing

I will read anything that Ruta Sepetys writes because her books are always so fascinating, and they often include untold or rarely told history.

This book details Stalin's reign of terror where he took educated people who he did not consider to be good Soviets and arrested them. They were transported to work/labor camps where thousands of people died. Very few people survived. So many Lithuanians were executed. ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Jan 24, 2018 Kristin rated it it was amazing

Shelves: historical-fiction, 2011-books, favorite, book-to-movie

This is a book about a time in history most Americans know nothing about. It shows how Lithuanians were savagely taken from their homes to a prison camp in Siberia, Russia during World War II. Through the eyes of Lina, a teenager, we see the horror of a mother and her children on a forced march to the camp and the deadly urgency to stay alive in this forsaken climate. She desperately tries to help her family and get word to her father, thousands of miles away in another prison camp.

Ruta Sepetys ...more

Like · see review

Jan 19, 2023 Carissa Brown rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: cover-lover, young-adult, romance, history-historical, audiobook

This book is set during WWII. You wouldn't know it from this book though. There were so many horrible things happening during WWII, but the world usually concentrates on Germany. A book set under Stalin is an interesting viewpoint and one we need.

Lina and her family are being deported from Lithuania for "crimes". They have no idea what they did, but they haven't seen their father in a long time. While being transported on the train to the prison camp we meet many other families that are also be ...more

Like · see review