00dc8-toptentuesday

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish.

Each week there’s a different Top Ten list. It’s a great way to find and connect with other awesome bloggers.

I get to recommend books!! Yay!!

I actually did a similar post a whiiiile back, when I was a little baby blogger. It’s a boring post – no pictures or gifs or ANYTHING, just words. But it’s here if you’d like to see those recs, because I still love them. Although a lot of them are MG rather than YA, so this time I’m doing all YA books.

The Protected by Claire Zorn

Claire Zorn is now one of my favourite writers. Both this one and The Sky So Heavy are absolutely amazing, and everyone should read them. The Protected is about family and a girl who’s lost her sister, and it’s set near where I live so that’s exciting.

Flirty Dancing by Jenny McLachlan

I don’t care that it has an embarrassing title and cheesy-looking cover. It is SO ADORABLE and again, everyone should read this one. It’s about a dance competition and standing up for yourself and it has excellent family members.

Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer by Katie Alender

I was SO SURPRISED by how much I loved this one! It has France and food and a serial killer, and yeah, okay, the ending wasn’t great, but more people should read this.

Unhinged by A G Howard

So the first book is quite popular, but the second one is SO MUCH BETTER than the first!!

Every Day by David Levithan

David Levithan is a bit of a hit-and-miss author for me, but I LOVED Every Day. It’s about A, who inhabits a different body every day, and it’s really, really interesting.

Northern Lights by Philip Pullman

ONE OF MY FAVOURITE SERIES OF EVER. Everyone – and I mean everyone – should read this series. It’s got polar bears and science and magic and witches and different worlds and daemons, which are souls in animal format, and oh my gosh it’s just amazing.

Life in Outer Space by Melissa Keil

Seriously amazing contemporary. Which reminds me, I really need to buy The Incredible Adventures of Cinnamon Girl…

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

I cried. Seriously. (okay, no, I didn’t, but I was CLOSE) It’s full of sass and yes, it’s a bit slow at the beginning, but it’s about friendship and war and UGH, it’s amazing.

My Life Next Door by Huntley Fitzpatrick

Which reminds me that I have to read What I Thought Was True. I was so surprised at the DEPTH of this book – it has an awesome romance but it’s also really thought-provoking.

The Last Girl by Michael Adams

The writing in this book is so SMART. And it’s a dystopian like I’ve never read before – people can suddenly hear what everyone is thinking, sooooo everyone starts killing each other. Pretty much. It’s awesome.

So those are my top ten under-rated YA reads! Okay, some of them aren’t that under-rated, but MORE people should be reading them!! Go forth, blogglings, and add to your near-infinite TBR 🙂

Author: Elizabeth Wein

Genre: YA historical (WWII)

Length: 447 pages

Published by: Egmont Press

Source: school library

Blurb:

Oct. 11th, 1943-A British spy plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France. Its pilot and passenger are best friends. One of the girls has a chance at survival. The other has lost the game before it’s barely begun.

When “Verity” is arrested by the Gestapo, she’s sure she doesn’t stand a chance. As a secret agent captured in enemy territory, she’s living a spy’s worst nightmare. Her Nazi interrogators give her a simple choice: reveal her mission or face a grisly execution.

As she intricately weaves her confession, Verity uncovers her past, how she became friends with the pilot Maddie, and why she left Maddie in the wrecked fuselage of their plane. On each new scrap of paper, Verity battles for her life, confronting her views on courage, failure and her desperate hope to make it home. But will trading her secrets be enough to save her from the enemy?

So, ah, this book is sad. It doesn’t start off like that. In fact, the beginning of the book is INCREDIBLY BORING and if it wasn’t for the hordes of bloggers who had recommended that I keep going past the slow parts, I probably would have DNF’d it. Actually, no, that’s a lie since I’m stubborn and can’t DNF books apparently, but YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. But I highly, highly recommend reading past the slow bits because the rest is just…woah. After about the first hundred pages (a bit less, actually) it starts getting good.

The book itself starts with Verity’s confession to Gestapo about all sorts of things – she’s writing the whole story down.

Basically, Verity is the most incredible character I’ve ever read about in a WWII story.

She has lots of names, but we’re going to call her Verity because duh, that’s what the title says. In her recount, she talks a LOT about Maddie, and these were the boring bits – I did not sign up to read about planes, everyone. But the glimpses of what’s happening to her, the subtly veiled tales of how she is being tortured…they broke my heart. And yet still, in her account, she manages to be one of the most sassy heroines I’ve ever come across. And that’s saying something.

She introduced humour to the book that was, at the same time, heart-breaking. How you put humour into a book about WWII, I don’t know, but it was done so well and felt real to me the whole time. VERITY felt real. Truthful (haha, get it, because “Verity” means truth? Okay, I’ll stop now).

And then halfway through, we get Maddie’s account. The only way to describe my reaction through this half was:

WOAH. JUST WOAH.

I read the second half of the book in one sitting, because I COULD NOT LOOK AWAY. And I can’t say too much without spoilers, but let’s just say that oh my goodness Verity I love you so much *hugs Verity*. I kind of suspected some things throughout her account but to hear them from Maddie’s point of view…wow.

The way this novel unravels is really amazing. The friendship, the plot twists/reveals, the RESEARCH. Holy crap, the research. I skimmed through the bibliography at the end and wowzers, Elizabeth Wein deserves many many medals for being so dedicated. And even though she intentionally changed some things to fit with the story, to me it all felt way too real.

I mean, sometimes I’m scared by horror movies. But I am terrified about events that take place in historical fiction – events that could well have happened.

This was what Code Name Verity did. The title of this blog post is a lie – I didn’t cry at this book. I was too stunned, shocked, horrified to cry. What these girls did is incredible, and I SO want to believe that something like this happened. It’s a tale of bravery, friendship and sacrifice.

And I loved it.

My only complaints were 1) The slow start and sometimes dense writing, and 2) I wish there could have been more of Maddie and Verity TOGETHER.

But you should definitely, definitely read this book. Even if you don’t really like historical fiction (I don’t).