CODE NAME VERITY by Elizabeth Wein Book Review
Publication Date: May 15th 2012 by Hyperion Books for Children
Rating: – Acceptable |

Book Summary: I have two weeks. You’ll shoot me at the end no matter what I do.

That’s what you do to enemy agents. It’s what we do to enemy agents. But I look at all the dark and twisted roads ahead and cooperation is the easy way out. Possibly the only way out for a girl caught red-handed doing dirty work like mine — and I will do anything, anything, to avoid SS-Hauptsturmführer von Linden interrogating me again.

He has said that I can have as much paper as I need. All I have to do is cough up everything I can remember about the British War Effort. And I’m going to. But the story of how I came to be here starts with my friend Maddie. She is the pilot who flew me into France — an Allied Invasion of Two.

We are a sensational team.

Book Review Overview:

• First half of the story is agonizingly slow
• Story wasn’t engrossing for me until the second half of the story
• Overall, it didn’t live up to my expectations; I wasn’t blown away as I thought I would be

I’ve heard so many great reviews about CODE NAME VERITY by Elizabeth Wein, so when it became available on NetGalley, I jumped at the chance to read it. Unfortunately, CODE NAME VERITY didn’t live up to my expectations. The first half dragged on too much for me to enjoy the novel when it finally got going.

CODE NAME VERITY is about a female Scottish spy who is captured by the Germans during World War II. Forced to spill everything she knows about the Allied Forces, she writes down her experiences with her best friend Maddie, a pilot. The first half of the novel is mainly an epistolary novel told from the third-person perspective. The novel really dragged on for me because the protagonist basically talks about herself in the third-person the entire time. Unlike other World War II novels, we are given into a glimpse of history that no one really hears about: female pilots during World War II. It sounds like an interesting concept, but in reality their work really wasn’t that exciting. Because of the fact that they are women, their jobs are kind of boring – which means that the reading is a little dry.

For someone who is a fan of reading the historical genre, it’s saying something when I say that I was a little bit bored by CODE NAME VERITY. I just couldn’t get myself invested with the protagonist enough to care. I think that the protagonist does a better job getting us to like Maddie than herself – which is unfortunate because it is her life on the line. Who cares about a female pilot when it is you being tortured?

But once I got to the second half of CODE NAME VERITY by Elizabeth Wein, I loved how the loose ends of the novel came together. It was only until then that I could not stop reading. There were some details that I didn’t even realize were pivotal to the entire scheme of things and I resisted the urge to thumb through earlier parts of the novel (also, it helped that I was unable to “thumb” through the novel because I read this on my nook). There were so many clues along the way and I only picked up the barest hints. The ending was satisfying, but I still lacked an emotional connection with the characters. The novel overall would have had a bigger impact on me as a reader if I had made a stronger connection with either character.

I would not recommend this book to those who are not fans of historical novels. The first half of CODE NAME VERITY by Elizabeth Wein will be a struggle to those who do not like to read about the past. But if you are a fan of historical novels, give this one a chance and you might end up enjoying it a lot more than I did.

Other Book Reviews:
Anna Reads
Good Books & Good Wine
The Reclusive Reader

1 comment

Be the first to like.

Like

Unlike

Permalink Book Review, Three Stars - Audience: Young Adult, Author: Elizabeth Wein, Book: Code Name Verity, Borrow It, Genre: Historical, Publisher: Hyperion | 1146 words

Hey, what’s this? A new feature? Yep. This is just some of the highlights I’ve encountered while digging through my Google reader feed, YouTube, Goodreads, and Twitter.

Reviews Worth Reading

Convincing, entertaining, well-written or all of the above, these reviews are worth your time.

I haven’t seen a lot of reviews for Ilsa J Bick’s Drowning Instinct, despite the fact that her other book, Ashes was all over the blogosphere. I finally came across a review written by The Elliott Review. I am convinced that I need to have this book now.

I’ve seen Cross My Heart by Katie Klein around the web, but I never really thought about picking it up. This review at Confessions of a Bookaholic made me change my mind.

Read All About It: Articles & Discussion

Helpful tips and tricks & interesting bookish debates, articles, and discussion on the blogosphere.

For those who need a bit of HTML help, the Authoress explains how to code your button code.

On one-star reviews at Write About Now. Great insight on what one-star reviews really mean.

Small Review discusses the Dark Side of Blogging: from misbehaving authors to plagiarism.

Ebook Deals on Nook! – $5 or Less

I love a good deal – especially on ebooks. All the Harper Collins 0.99 cents ebooks are still on sale. Grab them while you can. Here are some deals that I came across while scouring the Barnes and Noble website! (Last checked on Wednesday, January 25th):

Blue Bloods by Melissa de la Cruz
Bumped by Megan McCafferty
Camille by Tess Oliver
Catching Jordan by Miranda Kenneally
Cross My Heart by Katie Klein
Entwined by Heather Dixon
Evermore by Alyson Noel
Forget Me Not by Colleen Murtagh Paratore
The Girl Who Was on Fire Anthology
The Goddess Test by Aimee Carter
Graceling by Kristin Cashore
Half-Blood by Jennifer L Armentrout
Hereafter by Tara Hudson
The Iron King by Julie Kagawa
The Iron Knight by Julie Kagawa
Kiss of Frost by Jennifer Estep
Living Violet by Jamie Reed
Marked by PC Cast
Once a Witch by Carolyn MacCullough
Ophelia by Lisa Klein
Ten Things We Did (And Probably Shouldn’t Have) by Sarah Mylonowski
Touch of Frost by Jennifer Estep
Vesper by Jeff Sampson

Added on GoodReads

What caught my eye on GoodReads and was added to the pile. After all the award buzz about this book, I just have to pick it up! … Eventually.

Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley

Just when seventeen-year-old Cullen Witter thinks he understands everything about his small and painfully dull Arkansas town, it all disappears. . . .

In the summer before Cullen’s senior year, a nominally-depressed birdwatcher named John Barling thinks he spots a species of woodpecker thought to be extinct since the 1940s in Lily, Arkansas. His rediscovery of the so-called Lazarus Woodpecker sparks a flurry of press and woodpecker-mania. Soon all the kids are getting woodpecker haircuts and everyone’s eating “Lazarus burgers.” But as absurd as the town’s carnival atmosphere has become, nothing is more startling than the realization that Cullen’s sensitive, gifted fifteen-year-old brother Gabriel has suddenly and inexplicably disappeared.

While Cullen navigates his way through a summer of finding and losing love, holding his fragile family together, and muddling his way into adulthood, a young missionary in Africa, who has lost his faith, is searching for any semblance of meaning wherever he can find it. As distant as the two stories seem at the start, they are thoughtfully woven ever closer together and through masterful plotting, brought face to face in a surprising and harrowing climax.

Complex but truly extraordinary, tinged with melancholy and regret, comedy and absurdity, this novel finds wonder in the ordinary and emerges as ultimately hopeful. It’s about a lot more than what Cullen calls, “that damn bird.” It’s about the dream of second chances.

Terrific Trailers

This trailer convinced me to add the book to my TBR pile!

4 comments

1 person likes this post.

Like

Unlike

Permalink Digging Through the Stacks, Memes - Author: Elizabeth Wein, Author: John Corey Whaley, Book: Code Name Verity, Book: Where Things Come Back | 1105 words