Whatever you do, do not confuse Between Shades of Grey (a YA novel) with 50 Shades of Grey. They are not the same book and you do not want to buy your pre-teen/teen the wrong book. (Elly noticed the audiobook case in the car and was appalled that we would listen to “THAT BOOK” in the car – the very same car that we use to drive CHILDREN around in. Which made us laugh and talk about how NOT sexy this book is. It also caused us to reserve 50 Shades of Grey in audio… but another post about that, once it arrives and we’ve listened to it, in the same car that we use to drive CHILDREN around in.)
It’s not a bad book. It was just troubling to listen to on audio.
The book is about Lithuanians deported to Siberia and kept in camps and prisons where they suffered horrible, horrible things. So that’s interesting – we see a lot of books about Nazi Germany and the atrocities perpetrated on Jewish people but not so much about the NKVD and the people of Lithuania, Finland, and Estonia.
What wasn’t so good was that as Lina is telling the story, she suddenly flashes to telling a story from her memories of home. It’s jarring. Difficult to figure out what the heck happened, when you’re driving along in the car listening along. In print, I would assume it’s easier to tell when you’ve moved into memory.
TW also mentioned that she did not really like Lina – the 16 year old girl who tells this story. I didn’t dislike her but I was surprised that she didn’t grasp some stuff earlier – or ever. She wasn’t dumb, she was just clueless for longer than I’d have liked.
This is a Cybils shortlist book – and that’s fine. I don’t NOT recommend it. I do feel like it’s one of those books that teachers and parents think children should read but a book that children probably wouldn’t pick up on their own. It’s something that will feel a little too much like homework to them.