Wein, Elizabeth E. - Code Name Verity

[oyceter]

A young woman is captured as a spy in Nazi-occupied France. And there's stuff about female pilots in WWII.

This is one of those books you want to read while knowing the least possible amount about the content. If you do know more, it won't ruin the book, since I think the book will stand up well to multiple readings, but it is a spy narrative.

As a note, potential trigger warnings for oblique interrogation details, along with wartime violence.

For people who want to know more, this book has amazing female friendship (SO SLASHY), excellent characters, Nazis in WWII who are genuinely terrifying and prosaic at the same time, plots within plots, and given how in love I was with stories about the French Resistance in WWII, this would have been my absolute favoritest book EVAR EVAR EVAR if I had read it as a kid.

Not that it isn't a favorite now, but younger me probably would have made up stories and fic and enacted key scenes and made her friends play different parts and such.

SPOILERS LIEK WHOA

I picked up on some of the things fairly quickly, such as the underlining indicating important tactical bits. But I remembered being confused when I started reading; I didn't quite believe the narrator was a captured spy or had been tortured that badly because of how breezy the narration felt. And Julie never quite lets the reader know just how bad it is, even when I figured out that she was somehow secretly signaling to the radio reporter lady.

But mostly just... Oh Julie. Oh Maddie. I didn't believe Julie was dead until the book had ended without her magically being saved, just because she couldn't be dead. Not like that, not after everything.

I love how Julie writes about herself as Queenie, the way she deliberately uses markers of stereotypical femininity to get both her readers in the text and her readers as in us to underestimate her. And the best part of it is, she's not lying, not really. She is, in many ways, the upper-class Scottish lady, but what makes her so good is that it's not all she is. I have noodling thoughts about performative femininity and the difference (if there is one) between our roles and who we are.

And the best bit is, instead of only having one model of a female character, we get the wonderful interplay between Julie and Maddie. Maddie's section of the narrative was less fun for me to read, largely because Maddie doesn't have the same need or desire for narrative flair that Julie does. But I love also how steady and steadfast she is, I love the difference between how she sees herself and how Julie sees her.

I also heart Anna Engel, who was completely unexpected to me.

I don't really have a conclusion, since my main reaction is to flail and wave my hands and tell people to read it so I can talk about it with them. But this is definitely on the "best books I've read in 2012" list, and I knew it even though I finished it back in May.

Links:
(all links go to the day post to preserve spoiler cuts)
- skygiants' review
- musesfool's review
- rachelmanija's review (no spoilers in post or comments)

Assume spoilers in comments!

Comments

[laceblade]

IT WAS THE BEST!!!

[oyceter]

I KNOW!! I want to say more but all I have is "BEST! GO READ! KISS ME HARDY!"

[musesfool]

SO GOOD OMG. I started tearing up just reading your post.

JUST FLY THE PLANE, MADDIE.

[oyceter]

I am still picturing tons of scenarios in my head in which the ending isn't quite the ending and Julie miraculously escapes, because she is Julie.

Also, Yuleide. IJS.

[shati]

Yessss I love reading reviews of Code Name Verity because I have no thoughts of my own. I straight up bawled for at least an hour while and after I finished it. I have no words, only tears.

Maddie does have less narrative flair than Julie, but I kind of loved her for the lack of it as much I loved Julie for it. Julie drops all the hints, but Maddie picking them up was actually more satisfying for me than picking them up myself.

[oyceter]

This is one of the few books I finished and then turned right back to the beginning to reread.

I love Maddie picking up all the hints, and I also like getting Maddie's much more down-to-earth narrative as a contrast to Julie's. I remember thinking the danger was not at all real in the first few chapters of Julie's narrative precisely because her flippancy can be so deceiving (and yet true... I have no doubt she really wanted her clothes back!), and Maddie's brings it home.

They are such the best team ever.

[yasaman]

IDK what you're talking about, Julie is fine! The Doctor came in his TARDIS and saved her and she and Maddie lived happily ever after, the end! ...sadly, this AU only exists in my head. *weeps*

I loved Julie a lot. Like, a lot a lot. I spent all of her narration absolutely besotted with her, so I literally could not believe it when she died. I can't even really talk about the book, I just descend into babbling about JULIE and how much I love her ;_________;

[oyceter]

I LIKE YOUR AU AND WOULD LIKE TO LIVE THERE PLS.

I just. OMG. I spent the entire last part of the book absolutely CONVINCED Julie had miraculously found a way out, possibly with some deception that involved her sweater or something, and that there would be a happy reunion because JULIE. I heart her so much. I forgot where I read a review that compared her to Lymond and Wimsey, but it is so true, except EVEN BETTER because she is a woman and because of Maddie and oh man. I love them so much.

[cofax7]

SO AWESOME.

I made my niece read it: I need to pick her brain this weekend on whether she liked it.

I really loved it. So smart, so sneaky, so moving.

[oyceter]

! I am really curious as to what your niece thought! I am fairly sure I would have loved this and completely imprinted on it even more if I had read it when I was younger, but I am never quite sure I can tell how my tastes intersect with younger people's now.

[metaphortunate]

Oh god, such a good book! One of the very few I've bought recently non-electronic and so worth it.

[oyceter]

! I really should get a physical copy too so I can sic it on tons and tons more people.