Code Name Verity by Elizabeth WeinDisney-Hyperion, 2012

Code Name Verity is one of those books I had sort of put off reading, and I’m not sure why. Because there was a lot of hype about it? Because historical fiction set in WWII isn’t necessarily my thing (with the exception of Blackout and All Clear by Connie Willis)? I don’t know: it never seemed like the right time to pick this up, but I am glad I changed my mind and finally got around to it.

Because of the nature of the plot and the narration, it’s hard to talk about this book without venturing into spoiler territory, so I won’t say much. From the start of the book, what you’re reading is framed as a confession: the narrator is British but is being held prisoner by the Gestapo in occupied France, and she’s been given two weeks to write her story/tell her captors everything. Part of the story she tells is of how she ended up in France, and part of that story is about her friendship with Maddie, an Air Transport Auxiliary pilot who flew her across the Channel. Her recollections of how she and Maddie met, and how their friendship grew, are totally excellent and sweet and charming, and make her current separation from Maddie that much more poignant. (Also excellent is the narrator’s brother, Jamie, who’s also a pilot: her stories of him, and the moments we get to see him, elsewhere in the book, are totally great.)

The pacing of this book felt somewhat uneven, but not necessarily in a bad way: it starts off slow, but once it gets going, it really gets going. Part of the reason for this is that it goes from being not that plot-driven to being very plot-driven, but in a way that worked for me: once the plot picked up, I was emotionally invested in the characters (this book made me cry, multiple times).