Code Name Verity: a brief review

taken from Goodreads.com

This book came to me through my book club this past month. I did a horrible job of planning out my time - still getting the hang of reading books under a schedule for a designated meeting - and had an unexpected trip to my parents' house that got in the way of me even going to book club anyway, but I pressed ahead and finally finished it yesterday. I have to be completely honest: I'd never heard of this book before it was "assigned" and I had a little bit of a bad attitude about reading it (I'm planning a post that will delve into this bad attitude in a lot more detail). I have lots of conflicting thoughts about it now that I'm done, and I think that even as I type I'm still sorting through all those thoughts. So this should be good.

Elizabeth Wein's historical fiction novel Code Name Verity is the story of two young girls fighting for the Allies in pre-Normandy WWII. One is a spy and the other is a pilot, and their time together in training and fighting has made them best friends. When a simple flight turns into a near death experience that separates them, both girls are left to fend for themselves in the middle of occupied France. (I realize that's a really vague description, but that's intentional because it's hard to say much more without giving important surprises and details away. And the best parts of this book are the surprising details.)

Here are my really conflicting thoughts: I didn't understand the entire first half of the book. I genuinely didn't. The reader is thrown right into the middle of the plot with no information or context, which sometimes works really well and sometimes is just really confusing. This time, I personally felt really confused. I was confused by what was happening in the plot as well as what I was the actual content was: I can watch war movies all day long but I just cannot read about it. It all goes way over my head and I have no way of picturing what's happening or understanding the details. BUT, the second half was really great. And the farther you get into the book, the more everything starts to make sense. Even that super confusing first half. By the end of the 480-something pages, the light bulbs are all on and you realize how freaking brilliant the book is as a whole...but I still couldn't help but be frustrated by the fact that it took me that long and that many pages to get to that point. Because really, the book as a whole is freaking brilliant. And wonderful. And beautiful. But I have a hard time recommending it because of how long it took me to see the brilliant, wonderful beauty.

So here are my summed up thoughts: this is a beautiful book about friendship, loyalty, maintaining incredible decisions under stress, and some spunky 1940s era European girls. It's also a book you're going to have to be - if you're a reader like me, anyway - really patient with, and see through to the end. 480-something pages is a whole lot to feel like you need to be patient with, but I do think it's worth it. Because, like I said, it's freaking brilliant.