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.