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This historical reference for this story is during WWII 1941-1945, when a huge number of Lithuanians (130,000 people, 70% women and ...more

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Aug 05, 2019 Lindsey rated it it was amazing

Shelves: historical-fiction, 1900-1950, young-adult, eastern-europe, ww2

This was a very eye-opening, emotionally charged story for me to read. I had no idea of the atrocities committed in the Baltic countries by Russia starting just prior to WWII. When you think of packing people in cattle cars and shipping them off to work camps to be treated as less than human, Germany and the Jewish people are what automatically come to mind. But Russia did the same thing to the people of Lithuania and the other Baltic countries- they got rid of anyone they felt wasn't the ideal ...more

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May 06, 2016 Cecily Black rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

So good!!

I don't even know where to start with this novel but I am currently blowing my nose and wiping away the tears from my eyes as I write this.
I have read many books that have explained many different stories and situations that happened during WWII and I even took a break from them for a while because they were just so hard to read and sadly a bit repetitive if you know what happened.
That being said, I have never heard much from the Russian side of things and what effect Stalin had on h ...more

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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

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Jan 24, 2018 Kristin rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2011-books, historical-fiction, 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

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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

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