Book Thoughts: Code Name Verity

Title: Code Name Verity
Author: Elizabeth Wein
*Imported from tumblr*

Holy freaking cow. This book. I don’t know where to start.

Code Name Verity is one of those books that made me giggle and then tore my heart to shreds and now I want to share it with absolutely everybody, because it’s so beautiful and heartbreaking and real and ugh I’m about to cry again.

Code name “Verity" has been taken prisoner by the Gestapo. This book is her story — her story, and the story of her best friend Maddie. A spy and a pilot, two girls in an unlikely and heartbreaking situation during World War II, and the story of how they find, and re-find, each other.

The Nazis’ treatment of POWs is handled tactfully and without being overly gruesome while at the same time being hauntingly honest. And the realities of war become far too real in the pages of this book. But the girls’ friendship, and the kindness of strangers, and the often-forgotten humanity of even the enemy soldiers — those are equally powerful and real. And basically, you should DEFINITELY read this book.

Book Thoughts: And Then Things Fall Apart

Title: And Then Things Fall Apart
Author: Arlaina Tibensky

I read this book after hearing the author speak at a conference last November and thinking that she sounded like me. I had no real idea what to expect from the book. Even so, it managed to be not what I expected.

Keek (short for Karina) is sick. Heartsick, and also chicken-pox-sick. Her parents are splitting up, she and her boyfriend had a Fight, and her baby cousin is in the NICU on the other side of the country, and on top of all that she's covered in itchy pox. The novel is essentially Keek's diary as she tries to come to terms with the insanity in her life.

What surprised me, really, is that Keek is fourteen or fifteen. I've gotten used to reading about older teens (probably because I am an older teen - I'll be twenty in less than a year). It is from older teen protagonists that I look for internal struggles about virginity, not from a narrator my baby brother's age (high school freshman). But I think that, in part, is why Keek's story is important.

These are issues that real young teens face. As much as the idea of losing my virginity at fourteen would have terrified me, that's a legitimate question. And I loved that Keek was honest with herself about it and not afraid to be afraid. I think it's great to have a character encouraging young teens to do what's best for them rather than what someone else wants them to do.

ATTFA isn't one that I would have picked up had I not heard the author speak, and it's not one that I would give to someone my age, but for someone in 8th-10th grade, I would definitely give them this book. Honest and clever and funny and thoughtful, Keek is a narrator that makes me want to be her friend.

Series Thoughts: Georgia Nicolson

Title: Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging (book 1)
Author: Louise Rennison
Series: Georgia Nicolson
*Filed in archives under title of first book.*

[[Another very early one. Wasn't 15-year-old me cute?]]

Many thanks to my friend Sara, who lent me the first three books in this fabbity-fab-fab series. And for the record, I have (so far) read three and a quarter of the books. I think there are nine out thus far.

For those of you who are wondering, it's the Confessions of Georgia Nicolson series. Book One is called Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging (the second one is On the Bright Side, I'm Now the Girlfriend of a Sex God and the third is Knocked Out by My Nunga-Nungas). It's the diary of a British girl who gets into an awful lot of amusing trouble and is juggling her boyfriend (the "Sex God" Robbie) and the boy she might like ("Dave the Laugh"), plus her best friend Jas, who can be quite annoying and also happens to be dating Robbie's brother Tom.

I laughed out loud a LOT reading them. I plan to continue doing so. I have to finish #4 (Dancing in My Nuddy-Pants) and then the fifth one (Away Laughing on a Fast Camel, which I suspect may involve Dave because that's what he says instead of goodbye, but I'm not sure, as I haven't even finished the fourth book yet let alone the fifth). Anyway, they're completely amazing. Fabbity-fab-fab and double marvey with knobs. :)

The books are absolutely hilarious, chock full of British slang, and all around very entertaining. (Although my father has decided that they are probably morally questionable, based on the titles. The worst thing that's happened so far is a bit of snogging, which I shouldn't need to translate. I hope.)

Cheers from hamburger-a-gogo land -

Becky