I Must Betray You

I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The thing that strikes me most, is that I was very close to Christian's age during this book's timeline. I think about what I was doing and what my life was like, and then compare it to Christian's and I am retroactively thankful for this country and all the freedoms we enjoy here. So much of popular historical fiction seems to concentrate on WWII and the atrocities that were committed, that sometimes it's shocking to discover the same brutality continued (and still continues). Sepetys writes for YA, so there is not a lot of nuance--she spells it out in black and white what the differences are between the west and behind the Iron Curtain--which isn't a bad thing. Once again, it made me grateful for all the little ways we are able to express ourselves, and all the bounty we enjoy. The narrative also did a good job of expressing the paranoia that must exist when everyone is informing on everyone else. Not all questions are answered, and Sepetys writes that she did this deliberately because there is still so much unknown about that time, and its history is still trying to be illuminated. Informative and well-told, a book that will be meaningful for all age groups.

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