Overlooked?

[Stacia (the 2010 club)]

Is anyone else a little sad that this book hasn't gotten the same attention of many other WWII era books?

This is such a little known part of history, that I wish there were more people who've read this.

I'd love to see a movie.

[Dee]

this book opened up a whole new area of history to me and now I am finding more and more about it - An Echo Through the Snow had some of the touches of it but adult with a duel time-period (Siberia and Wisconsin); Woman in Exile: My Life in Kazakhstan (about a woman and her family exiled to Kazakshan) and many others

[Andrea]

i had not ever really heard about this era which makes me very sad

[Dee]

something to remember is that prior to the collapse of the soviet union, there was almost nothing known about this time period in general - so I think that we have made good strides in the last few years and i think in the future, we will start to see even more

[Tessa]

In WWII era, a lot of people focus on Germany and the nazis, I guess. That really is sad and Im glad I read this book and let Lina tell me her story. And I recommend it to everyone I now, so I can do my share in giving this book the attention it deserves!

[Leah]

this is a black eyed susan nommanie

[Michael]

This is one of the best novels I read, very gripping and emotional.

[Stacia (the 2010 club)]

Tessa wrote: "In WWII era, a lot of people focus on Germany and the nazis, I guess. That really is sad and Im glad I read this book and let Lina tell me her story. And I recommend it to everyone I now, so I can ..."

And I'm okay with that too. The Holocaust is very interesting to read about. The movie Escape From Sobibor makes me cry every time. It's just that because we know so much about the Holocaust now, that I would love to see some of the lesser-known history get a chance to come to the forefront. This story is part of a hidden history of WWII.

I was surprised to see that is becoming a movie over this book. Although, I guess having death as a character is a new spin on holocaust fiction.

[Driftwood]

I agree. Picked this book up at my mom's and thought it related to fifty shades of gray. ha ha. But it was well written and definitely a part of the holocaust I didn't know about. I really enjoyed it and recommend it. It urged me to explore more on the subject and time in history.

[Stacia (the 2010 club)]

One of my friends commented somewhere that this author had women show up at her book signings, thinking that she was the author of Fifty Shades. That made me laugh hard. But I guess it got people to look at this book, if nothing else...

[Leah]

I couldn't agree more, while reading this book at school I had kids coming up to me and asking if I'm reading Fifty Shades of Gray and I wanted so badly to flip out. I'm a kid why would I read an inappropriate adult book. This is an amazing book and it hurts that people would compare this masterpiece of historical fiction to Fifty Shades of Gray. Haters Gonna Hate hahaha, o well, more copies of this book for me to buy.

[Michael]

You are joking about "Between Shades of Gray" not getting enough attention aren't you?

I first heard about this book when the Wall Street Journal interviewed author, Ruta Sepetys. After that I saw it was a New York Times Best seller, an International Best seller, A Carnegie Medal Nominee, New York Times Notable Book, Wall Street Journal Best Children's Book, Publishers Weekly Best Children's Book of 2011, Booklist Best Book of 2011, Kirkus Best Book of 2011, Amazon To Ten Teen Books of 2011, Golden Kite Award Winner.

I can go on: More that 20 International Awards, 19 different State Awards in the U.S., 29 different translations.

[Stacia (the 2010 club)]

I think this book had a huge buzz circling it after it was released, then dropped off the map for a while before finally starting to pick up steam.

Sales and awards do not equate to a book being well-known and read. In two of the YA groups that I was modding last year (one I have since left), we had this book as a group read, and a good portion of the people had either never heard of the book, or had purchased the book around the time that it had come out and had never gotten around to reading it.

Historical fiction in general for the YA market is tricky. There are a few books which take off, while a great many go unnoticed.

It's actually been nice for me to see a rise in popularity of Between Shades of Gray since the time I started this topic. Just over the past couple of months, I've noticed several people reading it because of word of mouth. It did take a while for the word to really start getting out there though in order to see a rise in the amount of people actually reading (not purchasing) the book.

[Sarah]

I really do think this book has been overlooked, especially because of the title. For example, my school was going to read for summer, but then they got voted down because the title was too close to Fifty Shades of Grey. I got really ticked off because it is such a touching book that I think needs to be read more.

[Tara ♪]

I literally just read this book, and I love it. Someone on another site recommended to me since I loved Someone Named Eva, and I never picked it up. Then I saw it on amazon and added it to my wish list. I never bought it. Then GR recommended to me. And that's when I decided that I HAD to get it at the library. Right then. So, I got a fairly small stack of books. Only about ten or so. And I told myself to save this one until the end. And I did. And I finally read it. It just flew by. I absolutely loved it. It is so wonderfully wonderful. It's fantastic. EVERYONE, yes, literally EVERYONE should read this book!

[Georgia]

I too think this book should be publicized a bit more I mean it gives its reader a view on how it really was like for someone in Lina's situation. It makes people realize what Stalin did was wrong and so many people died and were punished for doing nothing wrong as well as showing something like this should never happen again.

[Akansha]

It doesn't get nearly enough attention. Not just the book but the history behind it too. History focused on the Jewish camps set up by the Nazi's and the atrocities committed there but it just glossed over the whole Lithuanian tragedy.
I'll be honest and admit it- I had no idea that the Russian's transported their citizens to far off locations, much less forced them to live in terrible conditions doing hard menial labour. This book definitely got me more interested in the period but also in Russia during WWII and the time immediately after.

This book is not Ruta Sepetys' most famous book either. That would probably be Out of the Easy. And it's good but it's nowhere near as deep and profound as this one. I think the unfortunate title may have contributed slightly to this. I mean, who would have thought that a few months after publishing this beautiful and tragic YA book, an adults-only book with a similar title would come out?

[Tytti]

Akansha wrote: "This book definitely got me more interested in the period but also in Russia during WWII and the time immediately after."

You better start from times before that. Stalin's Great Purge happened in 1934-40, Holodomor was before that. And not just their citizens as you can see from these memorials: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levashov... (Of course people in those mass graves were mainly executed.)

[Tytti]

Dee wrote: "something to remember is that prior to the collapse of the soviet union, there was almost nothing known about this time period in general - so I think that we have made good strides in the last few..."

Oh, come on. People have known about these events for decades, ever since they happened. Stalin started deporting and executing people already in the 1930s and there have been several books written by former prisoners and other survivors. The first book about a Soviet forced labour camp came out in the 1920s. The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956 was published in 1973, that's forty years ago! Many Soviet POWs who were to be returned (by force) to the Soviet Union rather killed themselves than returned, that should have been a clue.

[Kathy]

I loved this book! It's 1 of 15 MASL Gateway Nominee Awards list for 2014 and I would not have read it if not for my co-workers wanting to start a Gateway Nominees book club (I work at the library in my community). I don't normally like to read books like this because I don't genaerally like sad books, but I'm glad that I did read it because when I was done I made my kids read it! lol!

I was sad, as were my co-workers that it didn't win or even place in the finals, but that's ok because every chance I get I recommend this book to anyone and everyone!

It also opened up a new genre of reading for me because after reading this I read and it's companion whic I also loved and would recommend this to everyone! :D

[Dee]

Tytti wrote: "Dee wrote: "something to remember is that prior to the collapse of the soviet union, there was almost nothing known about this time period in general - so I think that we have made good strides in ..."

maybe for you - but this isn't taught in schools in the US - heck, they barely even learn US history now - I didn't grow up in the US (australia) and I didn't learn anything about this until I was an adult (out of college) and I have a history degree - so its all good and well for you to say everyone knew about it - but that isn't entirely true. I knew about the 5 year plans and the pogroms - but when it came to the annexation of the baltic states that was something unknown to me

[Tytti]

Dee wrote: "maybe for you - but this isn't taught in schools in the US - heck, they barely even learn US history now"

But you made it sound like no one knew about it before the fall of the Soviet Union, which isn't true. It was known about, just not taught in US (or Australia), and that's different. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and its secret protocol are also well known, and the fate of the Baltic countries was determined there. It's basic WWII history but for some reason some countries don't think it matters.

[Dee]

i'm saying, from my experience/perspective, it is not taught - I literally knew nothing, except that they had been annexed until very recently - the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact was not taught in any of the classes I took, including the WW2 one that I took in college, of the modern military history one that I took.

I didn't say people didn't know about it - I said not lots was known, there is a difference - but there is no point in discussing with you, as I have discovered in other threads, you only care about your perception - in fact, I believe you said you didn't want to read this book, when it was mentioned in a labelling YA thread because they are too simplistic and dumb (paraphrased) for you

[Tytti]

Dee wrote: " didn't say people didn't know about it - I said not lots was known, there is a difference"

Again, quite a lot has been known for quite some time. Maybe not details (we still don't know how many people were killed and where and how because the Soviet archives are closed again and it's difficult to search for mass graves) but the fate of the Baltic people wasn't very different from the fate of the Ingrian people, for example (and their repression started years before WWII). And I think it tells more about your education if you have managed to graduate without knowing about the M-R Pact than anything else. I don't know all there is to know about the world history but I don't go claiming that those facts are not known (if they are). I just have myself to blame for not knowing them and not being interested enough to find out.

I believe the significance of the Pact was taught to us in 8th grade. After all it more or less started the actual war in Europe. Because in it Germany and the Soviet Union decided how to divide the Eastern Europe between them. Germany then occupied the Western Poland, USSR the Eastern part. Three months later the Soviet Union started the Winter War and soon after that murdered the Polish officers in Katyn, after that they annexed the Baltic countries and started deporting people. I understand that most people don't really care about those events but that doesn't mean that educated people haven't been aware of them. (Didn't no one ever looked at the map and wondered how Germany could invade the Soviet Union at the start of the Operation Barbarossa when there had been several countries between them before the war?) Personally I have probably learned more about them from reading newspapers than ever at school, so yes, it's pretty basic history.

The reason I am not that interested in this book is because I have read/heard stories of people who have actually been deported and had to survive in the camps since I was a kid (and that was before the fall of the Soviet Union). I've heard how people ate grass or something else that made them sick because they had nothing else. I even know one person who managed to get to safety, her family had already died. I don't need love stories to keep me interested, I prefer to read non-fiction about this subject. There are also "adult" fiction written about that era.

[Emily]

Michael wrote: "You are joking about "Between Shades of Gray" not getting enough attention aren't you?

I first heard about this book when the Wall Street Journal interviewed author, Ruta Sepetys. After that I saw..."
There's even talk of a movie, too.

[Stacia (the 2010 club)]

Tytti wrote: "I don't need love stories to keep me interested, I prefer to read non-fiction about this subject. There are also "adult" fiction written about that era..."

I think the romance is very downplayed in this book. It is simply a byproduct of two people who were thrown together in an unusual circumstance.

Even though the story is fiction, the author went on a quest to research her family history and this story was born from inspiration of real life accounts, which makes the experience read less like fiction than you might expect.

As for it being YA, that is irrelevant to the quality of the story. Character age rarely has much to do with anything with stories of this sort. It's the same accounting of a person's life and hardships as it would be if written about a forty year old.

[Tytti]

Stacia (out of inspiration) wrote: "Even though the story is fiction, the author went on a quest to research her family history..."

Well I still haven't heard anything interesting about it that would make me want to read it, it just sounds boring. Maybe if you really hadn't heard anything about Gulag it sounds interesting but I have, a lot. I have an award winning novel about the same subject just waiting for me to pick it up but it's much more complex. And a couple of non-fiction books about the same era that have just come out.

Stacia wrote: "As for it being YA, that is irrelevant to the quality of the story. Character age rarely has much to do with anything with stories of this sort.

For me YA is an age category, something written FOR (not about) 12-18-year-olds. No one seems to know what YA is anyway, and that is the only description that makes sense. And because there seems to be some fear (in USA) that teenagers shouldn't read stuff that's "inappropriate" (whatever that is), there must be some limits. And I don't like "forced" limits in my books.

I also just watched a documentary of a man who, at the age of 15 in 1940, was already a veteran of one war. The next year he would again volunteer to fight in another one. If the deportations were such a big surprise to a 15-year-old Lithuanian, she probably hadn't been paying too much attention to what was happening around her. And did I really read from somewhere that Lina didn't know why her mother could speak Russian?!

[Rūta]

Tytti wrote: "Stacia (out of inspiration) wrote: "Even though the story is fiction, the author went on a quest to research her family history..."

Well I still haven't heard anything interesting about it that wo..."

Ok you have to understand one thing: the girl is only 15 years old, now 15 year girl is smart and almost a women, at that time she was only a girl, that didn't know anything, because there were no internet, the newspapers were controlled by Soviets and parents didn't say anything to children.

Lithuania at 1940 was a country of villages, not even villages but mostly farmsteads, and usually those people didn't have phones (the only phone was in post office about 10 km range from usual house), their letters were red and newspapers were controlled. They knew only what was told from lips to lips. I know because I live in Lithuania, half on my father's family was annexed to Siberia (they didn't know what was coming, they were only simple farmers). My mother told that her neighbor threw out her four years old son of the car to strangers, for her son to survive and she herself went mad.

Most people thought that they are too ordinary to be deported, but actually if you had some land or animals you already were a target. Some people managed to ran away leaving everything they had, some people weren't that lucky.

[Tytti]

Rūta wrote: "Ok you have to understand one thing: the girl is only 15 years old..."

I believe Lina's father was a professor at a university and they lived in... was it in Kaunas? But anyway, she wasn't a farm girl and neither was his father "just a farmer", they were better educated than most and one of the first groups to be persecuted. I just read a book about what happened in the Baltic countries from 1939 to 1941 (published in 1941 and quite accurate judged even by what we know today). The country had just been occupied, there were Soviet troops in towns, the elections had been fixed, they were controlling the newspapers, schools' curriculums had been changed, the deportations had already started in 1940, there were all kinds of changes and Lina wasn't worried one bit? Any 15-year-old should be able to see and notice what was happening around her. I didn't have the Internet while growing up but I did have discussions with my parents.

I can understand that they didn't know about Stalin's Purges during the 1930s like Finns did (and yes, owning land was a good reason to be deported) because Lithuanians hadn't been targeted yet and the escaped prisoners from Gulag probably didn't end up there, like they came to Finland, but still...