Oh my God this book was awful. Not awful as in badly written. Awful as in it ripped my heart out and stomped on it. Multiple times.
This is another one of those YA books that has been getting a lot of attention lately. I saw a couple different mentions of it online which intrigued me. Everyone has been raving about it so, when the library got it in, I was all yoink!
As is typical with YA books, it was a fast read. Unlike most YA books, it did not shy away from the nitty gritty aspects of WWII. Absolutely nothing is sugar-coated here. The characters frequently make light of their work and joke about it but that's all a cover. They play down the dangerous aspect of their jobs in order to keep themselves going but the undercurrent of fear is always apparent to the reader.
I'm not sure how I feel about the way in which the book is written. The first two-thirds is written by one character while the rest is written by another. It gives us two different view-points and, as it turns out, the first view-point wasn't entirely honest. Okay, that part was awesome. As readers we tend to trust our narrator inherently but we learn pretty early on in this book that we can't do that here and that was a neat twist in Wein's writing.
In all seriousness, you should read this book. Yes, it will tear your heart into tiny little shreds, but you'll be better for it. Trust me.
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