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.

Writing Workout: Awkward Stock Photos Challenge

                Thanks to the polar vortex, my school is going on a six day weekend. The downside is I was supposed to take my Statistics final six days ago. The upside is all this free time has enabled me to get some work done on my novel, work on finishing the Crash Course literature reading list, and come up with a new writing workout.

                The concept is ridiculously simple and also simply ridiculous. Pick a photo from Awkward Stock Photos and try to write an at least semi-logical short story about it. The point of this exercise is to learn to write yourself out of seemingly impossible situations, for when you have writer's block or need to up your word count on Nanowrimo. If you can't think of anything good, write all the possible ways the story could go. Then choose the best one and go with it.

Here are some pictures to choose from, or pick one from the Awkward Stock Photos blog:

                             Uptight boss who keeps the meeting going even after a gas leak?

               New smartphone that punches user whenever he or she posts something stupid online?

                                                    I don't even know what to tell you.

Back to Book Reviews: Flawed by Kate Avelynn

    First book review of the new year! Actually first book review since this summer. To be honest I’ve have pretty much only been reading books for my AP Lit class. Do you want a review of Old Man and the Sea from someone who is not an English professor? Didn’t think so. But I have found the time to read a few good Young Adult books. Here’s the first:

    Twelve years ago, Sarah O’Brien made an unbreakable pack with her brother, James. He would protect her from their abusive father if she promised to never leave him. But as they grew older, James hold on Sarah grew tighter and tighter. When Sarah falls in love James’ best friend, Sam, her brother proves to be more broken and dangerous than anyone ever thought.

This book was from my Black Friday book hall and I had never heard of it before I found it at Half Price Books. Not surprising, since this is Kate Avelynn’s first and only novel. Despite that, this book is suspenseful and compelling. Avelynn masters the art of keeping the reader on the hook of the drama without creating a soap opera. She delves into the guilt abuse victims feel and the flusters of first love at the same time. I would absolutely recommend reading this book, then checking out the alternative endings and all the other goodies Avelynn has on her website.

Coming up next: Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell

A Broken Resolution Against New Year's Resolution

     I learned a long time ago that making a New Year's resolution is the best way not to achieve anything you wanted. The only resolution I've ever finished is getting into the habit of asking someone how they were doing after they asked about me, and that only worked because I'm excessively Minnesotan. But there is something I really want to accomplish in 2014, so I'm breaking my resolution against resolutions.

     I've always wanted to be the kind of person who journals every day. The problem is I don't always have something to say and journaling quickly begins to feel like a chore. Then there are days when I do have an interesting observation about my life to write down but I have nowhere to put this mostly unformed thought. So in 2014, I have resolved to carry a journal around with me at all times.

     This will not be the "Dear diary, my day was..." kind of journaling. It's an idea I got partly from the book Spilling Ink by Anne Mazer and Ellen Potter, which recommends making your journal entries as creative as the rest of your writing. I won't write in it everyday, just when the mood strikes me. Yesterday, I sat down at the Walker Art Center after exploring the galleries and wrote a two page character study. It turned out to be my favorite piece of writing in months.

     Today I wrote another bit inspired by the Walker. They currently have multiple installations by Lawrence Weiner, a contemporary artist who believes in the power of words in art. He created the Walker's slogan, "Bits & Pieces Put Together to Present a Semblance of a Whole." While I was looking at his art, I thought of my own art-worthy slogan. Not very original, but I wrote in my journal, "Everything must go."

     This one little sentence got the ideas rolling. It somehow fit perfectly in the novel I'm working on and managed to move my plot along. My New Year's resolution is already paying of. It knocked me out of my funk. Perhaps I'll stick with it.

The Writer's Funk

                So I have been in a bit of a funk these past couple of weeks. The kind of funk that every writer knows. The kind of funk which makes you hate every single thing your mind comes up with and every single thing your mind has ever come up with. Maybe you have one thing you are excited to get to in your story, but to get there you have to write the most excruciatingly boring plot anyone has ever spit out. Like writer's block except all consuming.

                Novels die in the funk's wake.

                Seriously, the last time I was in a funk I thought there was something physically wrong with my brain.

                I'm trying my hardest to survive this funk without abandoning my current project, erasing my hard drive, and setting fire to my computer. So far I've been successful. I've also been successful at procrastinating at writing even though I have free time for the first time in weeks. Another symptom of the funk.

                 To keep from deleting the 34 measly pages I have written in the past two months, I'm trying to focus on the elements I like about my novel. The little parts that might actually survive past the first draft. Writers are a lot better off looking at the things they like rather than the bottomless holes where their creativity goes to die.

P.S. Don't tell me that "funk" isn't a real word.

Funk:

                1. a strong offensive smell

                2. a depressed state of mind

I think that pretty accurately describes what I'm talking about here.

Tumblr Pick of the Week

...I say as if this is a regular segment on this blog. ANYWAY, I saw this on Tumblr and found it to be very helpful advice on writing romance.

You can find it here on Confessions of an Opinionated Book Geek.