Five Reasons You Need to Read Code Name Verity Right Now

As a spy, "Verity" can talk her way out of any situation. But not this one. She has been captured by the Gestapo in Occupied France and given one deal. In exchange for a cleaner execution, she will confess everything she knows about the Allied war effort. But she is not going to make it easy. Every secret is wrapped in the amazing story of her friendship with the pilot, Maddie, showing the extraordinary bravery and humanity that led her to this point.

                I cried for about two hours straight over this book last night, but think I might be in the right state of mind to make a recommendation now. My recommendation is read it. Plow through the ten inches of snow outside your door right now to your local book store or library and pick up this book. Here's why:

1. It is a female driven novel.

                I fell in love with the narrator, Verity, on the first page. She is caustic, witty and entirely human. Her plotline is not driven by tragic romance, as women are often consumed with in war novels, but her extraordinary friendship with a British woman pilot, Maddie. It is also the first World War II novel I have heard of were woman in the Allied effort take center stage. Wein, an avid pilot herself, actually wrote the novel after being inspired by her research into female pilots during World War II.

2. The females are complex

                Verity and Maddie are the brand of skilled and courageous Britain is looking for, but their strength as characters go beyond their ability. They have moments of stress and weakness, as is imaginable with being tortured by the Gestapo. The women of Code Name Verity feel pride, shame, hopelessness, and bravery. Even the supporting female characters, such as Verity's Nazi supervisor, Engel, are much more than they seem on the surface.

3. It explains wartime procedures without justifying them

                 Wein does not try to push the envelope by excusing Nazi behavior by writing it off as intense patriotism. Von Lindon, Gestapo officer and director of Verity's torture, is a fully developed character, with a teenage daughter and a love of literature. But he does not get excused from the brutal acts he commits. Both sides of the war are portrayed as completely human, but neither gets a pass from war crimes.

4. It made me cry harder than The Fault in Our Stars

                And that's saying something.

5. The book is a total mind game.

                Can we trust a spy writing to the enemy as a narrator? Wein takes the line of unreliable narration and jump ropes with it. Verity may just as easily be playing a trick on the readers as she may be on the Nazis. When the plot finally came together, I literally screamed. Seriously, this book is frustratingly brilliant.

Writing Workout: Not Dirty But Little Secrets

     Ooh, today I have a creative nonfiction prompt for you all. Don't get too excited, this is mainly to soothe my own weird habits. I was just wondering if I am the only one who holds onto little secrets. Not big, family shattering secrets, just moments that are memorable because they were stressful at the time. Even though all this time has passed and now your worries seem trivial, it's still something that is embarassing to talk about.

     For example, in the eighth grade I dropped my math textbook and the binding broke from the spine. Back then I had all of ten dollars to my name and textbooks costed $75 minimum to replace. The teachers told us that if we had any of these unpaid fees by the time we graduated from high school, our diploma would be withheld. One can imagine how this would make an anxious little thing like thirteen year old me panic.
     So I did the most logical option my tiny brain could think of and told no one. I waited to fix the textbook till the very last day of middle school. The morning before I had to turn the book in, I used a poxy that took 24 hours to dry. Without checking to see if the poxy had worked, I turned my book back in.
     Nearly four years later, I still haven't heard a word about that textbook. But I still haven't told anybody about what happened. I supposed that I am embarassed that I didn't ask for help. I could have saved myself a lot of preteen angst if I viewed the issue with the forward thinking I have now. Again this is a completely trivial moment in my life, but I still remember it vividly.

     ANYWAY, my embarrassing middle school stories aside, here is your challenge. Write about a secret you haven't told very many people even though it is not at all a big deal. Why haven't you told anybody? Looking back on it now, what would you have done differently? The trick is to make your story relevant to a wider audience by finding a message in your own misguided adventures. Relevance is the key to great creative nonfiction.

     And now, because it has been stuck in your head since you read the title, here is Dirty Little Secret by the All American Rejects. Now this post is a complete throwback to middle school.