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WWII

reviews August 8, 2013

Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

 Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

That morning, my brother’s life was worth a pocket watch . . .

One night fifteen-year-old Lina, her mother and young brother are hauled from their home by Soviet guards, thrown into cattle cars and sent away. They are being deported to Siberia.

An unimaginable and harrowing journey has begun. Lina doesn’t know if she’ll ever see her father or her friends again. But she refuses to give up hope.

Lina hopes for her family. For her country. For her future. For love – first love, with the boy she barely knows but knows she does not want to lose . . . Will hope keep Lina alive?

Set in 1941, Between Shades of Gray is an extraordinary and haunting story based on first-hand family accounts and memories from survivors. (Goodreads)

In 1941 the Soviets are gathering people they think as anti-Soviets, mainly from university, army, teachers. When NKVD comes knocking on their door, 15 year old Lina’ life turns for the worse. She along with her mother and 11 year old brother gets deported from Lithuania to freezing Siberia with crowded train car that’s labelled as thieves and prostitutes. As in worthless people.

This was such a great and emotional book. There isn’t many books about Stalin’s regime and even fewer about the Baltic countries and it was great reading about those for change.

They were given very little food and water which resulted in people dying of hunger and disease. Under those circumstances people react differently. Some fights back and won’t give up, some are just desperate and some has given up. Lina’s mother is good example of someone who has courage and stays strong through it all. Even with small rations of wood, she always has food to give to those who needs it. She’s the one who keeps it all together.

The NKVD officers treated them worse than human beings. They were there to do their job and often saw it as a game. But it also made me thinking if there were some who had sympathies for the victims and who for their own good did nothing. I mean they would have gotten themselves killed otherwise most likely.

I would have liked to hear what happened to the other half after the camps were separated. And why they were separated in the first place. I also wondered what happened to that one guard and I found having more symphaty for him than I probably should have.

I’m not usually huge fan of historical YA but don’t let it fool you. This was amazing book and I’m glad I read it!

And it always makes me excited when Finland is mentioned in a book lol :)

4,5/5
Published: Puffin (2011)
Format: Paperback
Pages: 344
Source: my own

reviews July 27, 2013

Letters from Home by Kristina McMorris

Letters from Home by Kristina McMorris

Chicago, 1944. Liz Stephens has little interest in attending a USO club dance with her friends Betty and Julia. She doesn’t need a flirtation with a lonely serviceman when she’s set to marry her childhood sweetheart. Yet something happens the moment Liz glimpses Morgan McClain. They share only a brief exchange–cut short by the soldier’s evident interest in Betty–but Liz can’t forget him. Thus, when Betty asks her to ghostwrite a letter to Morgan, stationed overseas, Liz reluctantly agrees.

Thousands of miles away, Morgan struggles to adjust to the brutality of war. His letters from “Betty” are a comfort, their soul-baring correspondence a revelation to them both. While Liz is torn by her feelings for a man who doesn’t know her true identity, Betty and Julia each become immersed in their own romantic entanglements. And as the war draws to a close, all three will face heart-wrenching choices, painful losses, and the bittersweet joy of new beginnings. (Goodreads)

Betty has a singing gig at a USO dance and her roommates Liz and Julia has promised to come there. During the night Liz ends up dancing with Morgan, who leaves to war the next day. They instantly feels connection but when Liz sees him dancing with Betty later on, she thinks she must have been wrong and leaves home. Betty promised to write to Morgan overseas but she isn’t a writer and needs Liz to help her but Liz ends up writing the whole letter herself. When Morgan answers, Liz starts to writing letters to him without telling Betty about it.

I haven’t read much World War II related books so I was interested to read this and I was happy that I did.

The book is told from Liz, Julia, Betty and Morgan’s point of view. It was intresting to read about them all and they were in different points in life. Liz is engaged to a childhood friend, Julia’s fiancée is at war and she is falling in love with his brother and Betty enlisted as a WAC and gets shipped off to field hospital.

I’m not usually fan of books that has lot of letter writing but it worked here. And it was great to see how they got to know each other so well and falling in love through letters. And how much comfort letters gave to men at war and far away from families.We see all the characters to change during the book, and not only for the wartime experiance.

I really liked this and was curious when I read that the author’s grandparent’s love story inspired the book.

3,5/5
Published: Avon (2011)
Format: Paperback
Pages: 384
Source: publisher