Code Name Verity Book Review

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Julie, code name Verity, has two weeks to live. Two weeks to tell the Germans everything she knows, codes, names, places. In exchange they promise her a swift execution. And so, with painstaking honesty, Julie divulges her secrets.

Code Name Verity was absolutely brilliant. Throughout the first half of the book, I had a difficult time liking Julie. She is selfish, a traitor in the deepest sense of the word, willing to share all in an effort to not be tortured any more. She drags out her story day by day, knowing that with each sentence she is only delaying the inevitable. How is a reader supposed to relate or like a character like this? One that, by her own admission, is going to die in the end?

Then comes the second half, told from the perspective of Maddie, Julie's best friend, and everything changes. Everything. Your opinions of Julie, what she has said and done will be altered for the good. It is difficult to write this review without creating any spoilers and so I will leave it at this: This book was one of the best historical fiction novels I have read in a long time. I would not hesitate to recommend it to teens and adults with the full knowledge that they will be reading a truly wonderful book that deserves to be read more than once.