Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Code Name Verity is a World War Two novel about two young women who are involved in the war effort. One is a pilot, the other does field work. When they are on a mission to Nazi occupied France their plane crashes. They are separated. One is captured. She is mistreated and tortured for information. They show her photographs of the crash. She sees her friend Maddie’s charred remains in the wreckage of their plane. She gives them information in exchange for her clothes and for paper.

The paper is where we begin. Our narrator writes her story, weaving in details that might keep her alive but spending unnecessary  time describing her friendship with Maddie. In a way, Maddie is the main character because everything is about her and her journey to becoming a pilot and a major part of the war effort.

I don’t want to spoil too much because for me part of what made this story so good was only being able to guess at certain things and being kept in suspense. But here are some things that I liked about the story. I like that this story is about love, but is not a romance. I love that it is a war story but with an amazing female lead. I love that the story made me cry and was tragic, but I wouldn’t have changed anything about it. It made me think about how special best friends are and the power of friendship in difficult times. How much would you risk or sacrifice for your best friend?

The last comment I have is that I actually listened to this as an audiobook which I got from audible. I chose it based on 1. having seen the title before and thinking it sounded good and 2. listening to the sample reading which really hooked me in. The narrators are Morven Christie and Lucy Gaskell. They have lovely voices and do some great accents throughout. Because of the nature of the book being a retelling of a story that is written as diary it works really well as an audio and I think it brings it to life in a really fantastic way. It is about 10 hours long but honestly, I didn’t get bored of it and when I wasn’t listening to it I was thinking about it! It went really quickly and didn’t seem like a big ask to get through. I would like to read it again as a book one day though; I’d like to own a hard copy of it.

I would highly recommend this read either as the audio or as a book to snuggle up and read. I don’t really have any issues with it; no criticisms I can think of. Perhaps some of the historical plausibility could be called into question but there is an author’s note at the end which satisfied me on that front.

For me, it is the first 5/5 since I started this blog (the other two I had read previously to starting it) and I am really excited for more people to read it.

(picture links to amazon)

P.S. The quilt in the background of the photo is one of my ongoing projects that is finally almost finished! I am really proud of it.