Between Shades of Gray

Words cannot describe the beauty of this book. Ruta Sepetys tells the story of a fifteen-year-old girl, Lina, and the experiences she and her family have to endure during the Soviet occupation of Lithuania.

I am always hesitant to read books centered around World War II. I had to read several of them for school, and the sadness of those books was difficult to endure. Thus, I'm very cautious when I pick up novels of this nature. However, Ruta Sepetys makes the journey completely worth it. Her writing is exquisite. The imagery - perfection. From the first sentence, I could not put the book down. The characters wouldn't leave me alone. Their strength and love for one another, for God, and for country was inspiring, and the horrors they had to endure heartbreaking. 

One of the most amazing feats of this story is that I never felt bogged down with sorrow. Instead, Sepetys seamlessly presented characters as their whole person, not just as they were while in labor camps. The result was inspiring, in which the horrors of labor camps was revealed, but in which the tenacity of the survivors and their connection to one another was the root of the story.

I have never been so enlightened. Based on the true experiences of survivors of Soviet camps and with extensive research involved, this is a book everyone should read. Everyone needs to know what happened in the not too distant past. You will fall in love with these people and their story of survival. I cannot overemphasize this.

*Due to the content of this story, it is a book well suited for discussion. Appropriate for ages 14+  

To Read, or Not to Read. That is the Question.

I've often heard it said that young adult literature needs to probe the questions and problems that young adults face in their day to day lives. This includes swearing, drugs, eating disorders, depression, boy/girl relationships (however deeply involved they are). This is all true. And there are many books out there that do consider these very problems, and there are many good things to be said about those kinds of books.

However, while a teenager, I often wanted my books to be an escape. I wanted a book to take me somewhere I had never been before (not back to the hallways of my High School that I so desperately wanted to escape). I was aware of all the issues mentioned above that teenagers face. I was surrounded by it every day. Tell me, why would I surround myself in it outside of school? Even more I wondered, why couldn't there be books out there that didn't talk about the darkest side of the teenage life? There are many teenagers who don't face the problems adults are convinced teenagers obsess over.

This is when I discovered fantasy. Fantasy has its pros and cons, don't get me wrong. But it has a remarkable ability to jump outside of the present world and create a completely new one. It is often much cleaner than novels set in the present day, as the author has more leeway, such as deciding what a swear word is (and which most often isn't offensive). Fantasy makes me giddy. 

 How I love, however, those books of other genres that look beyond the grouchy teenager and can still set up real, believable characters. That takes a true stroke of genius and imagination. Books that look at the greater concept of what mankind is made of, with compelling words and breathtaking imagery--those are the books most worth reading. Those are the books from which a true reader thrives.