code name verity: definitely a book review

In a world where young adult books and media are filled with romance, angst and sex, I was in search of an "easy" read to kickstart my fiction reading for 52x52, and I wisely approached my good friend Anna for a recommendation to help me avoid being dragged into another Twilight experience. Somehow in my teen years I skipped right over the young adult fiction section of our library in favor of high fantasy and historical adult fiction, with the exception of that unfortunate saga, and I am wary of wandering in that direction without assistance. True to form, Anna was most helpful - I was given my choice of seven books, each with its own unique recommendations and warnings. Being in a thoughtful mood, I gamely selected the volume associated with "beautiful friendship" and "deep emotional trauma." It was that, and so much more.

Elizabeth Wein's code name verity is the first person narrative of a British intelligence officer caught in German-occupied France in the throes of WWII. Knowing that a bullet to the head is the most likely end to her time with the Gestapo, and in order to avoid (or at least lessen) the torture inflicted on her, she agrees to write down everything she knows of the British War Effort, although not quite in the way her antagonists might expect. Doing justice to the literary traditions she loves, the story she weaves is full to overflowing with love, joy, sorrow, and pain... and a deep, abiding friendship that comes more fully to life with each successive page.

If I tell you any more, I will have said far too much. The first reason I loved this book was because it gave me new insight into the European arena of World War II, in part because it was a woman's perspective, but also because of its attention to geography. In this book, as in the war, more than winning and losing are at stake; the enemy threatens the very things that make us human, and casts a pall over the glory and beauty of the country it invaded first: Germany.

Anna was right - emotional trauma is the best way to describe the experience, but not in a depressing way. Wein's writing is open and honest; her characters' personality and pain are intertwined on the page, and are a reflection of the hope and pain combined in the allied forces whose job it was to fight the Nazi regime. And all of it is made possible through the breathtakingly poignant story of two girls who had the sense to realize that they had met their best friend.

And they make a sensational team.

*****

As an aside, I hope I don't insult anyone by saying that I wish Suzanne Collins had given her brilliant idea for the Hunger Games books to Elizabeth Wein, because code name verity accomplished everything that the Hunger Games promised but failed to deliver in terms of emotional impact, character development, and cultural critique.