Elizabeth Wein's novel, Code Name Verity, is one of those books that everyone was reading a few years ago. It appealed to me, I got a copy, and then let it sit on the shelf until last week when I decided to give it a whirl.
It was wonderful--set in England during WWII, it is a non-traditional novel--no chapters but rather is broken into two parts. The first part is a confession by a female British spy, captured in Occupied France, in which she tells the story of her best friend, Maddie, a female pilot in the Air Transport. The second part is a report that Maddie writes, telling her side of the story. Both characters are absolutely marvelous--courageous, resourceful, practical, and loyal.
I really liked how the two friends were from different worlds--upper crust Scottish gentry and Manchester factory. They acknowledge that in peacetime they would never have met, much less been best friends.
It is suspenseful and cleverly written so that the reader never quite knows what to believe about what the two young women are saying until the end. It's quite difficult to write a review without giving away plot and character details that are so much more fun to discover as a reader than to know about ahead of time.
I gave it 5 stars on GoodReads--read up on author Elizabeth Wein, and am ordering the second in the Young Pilots Series, Rose Under Fire.
I absolutely love reading about WWII flying these days. My dad was an WWII RAF pilot and in typical fashion of his generation, didn't talk much about his wartime experiences, so these books help me understand what his life and work were like during the war.
I searched to see whether a movie was in the making, because it would make a terrific movie, and didn't find any current news, but I did find some fantastic fan art. Here is a sample that does a wonderful job in communicating the gist of the novel.
