This book was: borrowed from the library, but I loved it so much as soon as I turned the last page I ordered it from Amazon.
I rate this book: 5 out of 5 stars
Publication Date: March 22, 2011
Summary: Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they've known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circle, to a work camp in the coldest reaches of Siberia. Here they are forced, under Stalin's orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the cruelest of conditions.
Lina finds solace in her art, meticulously - and at great risk - documenting events by drawing, hoping these messages will make their way to her father's prison camp to let him know they are still alive. It is a long and harrowing journey, spanning years and covering 6,500 miles, but it is through incredible strength, love, and hope that Lina ultimately survives. Between Shades of Gray is a novel that will steal your breath and capture your heart.
My Review: Wow. This book really did take my breath away and steal my heart- the first 20 pages, I read then put it down, I was like, Oh, it's fine. Then, last night, well, this morning at 1 AM I picked it up to read a chapter or two.
And didn't put it down till 4 AM, when I had finished it.
It tells the story of Lina, whose on 'The List' a mysterious list of deportees. She sees people die, people get murdered, and much more cruelty, at the hands of Stalin and the NKVD.
I was literally about to burst into tears the entire book, the entire time I was like 'Oh my god, even though the author looks like she's going to kill them off, I really hope she has a happy ending!' and I loved all the character's, whom we slowly unravel from tangled balls of yarn with motives we don't understand to find the good inside.
It was an amazing book- i'm trying not to giveaway anything, so I won't even tell you if it has a happy ending- i'll just tell you this- it made me want to cry, but I cry even at happy parts, and felt like crying through the entire book, and was haunted by it afterwards.
An AMAZING book I recommend to everyone, about a smaller, forgotten, version of the holocaust, seen through a fifteen year old's, a child's, eyes, with flashbacks that add a special something to the whole book, so you feel like you truly know the characters, and are disappointed when you turn the last few pages.
I bought this book as soon as I was finished, at 4 AM, and am going to read this book again, since none of the other books on my TBR pile can live up to this book, and it's amazing standards.
Everyone should read this!
Publication Date: March 22, 2011
Summary: Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they've known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circle, to a work camp in the coldest reaches of Siberia. Here they are forced, under Stalin's orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the cruelest of conditions.
Lina finds solace in her art, meticulously - and at great risk - documenting events by drawing, hoping these messages will make their way to her father's prison camp to let him know they are still alive. It is a long and harrowing journey, spanning years and covering 6,500 miles, but it is through incredible strength, love, and hope that Lina ultimately survives. Between Shades of Gray is a novel that will steal your breath and capture your heart.
My Review: Wow. This book really did take my breath away and steal my heart- the first 20 pages, I read then put it down, I was like, Oh, it's fine. Then, last night, well, this morning at 1 AM I picked it up to read a chapter or two.
And didn't put it down till 4 AM, when I had finished it.
It tells the story of Lina, whose on 'The List' a mysterious list of deportees. She sees people die, people get murdered, and much more cruelty, at the hands of Stalin and the NKVD.
I was literally about to burst into tears the entire book, the entire time I was like 'Oh my god, even though the author looks like she's going to kill them off, I really hope she has a happy ending!' and I loved all the character's, whom we slowly unravel from tangled balls of yarn with motives we don't understand to find the good inside.
It was an amazing book- i'm trying not to giveaway anything, so I won't even tell you if it has a happy ending- i'll just tell you this- it made me want to cry, but I cry even at happy parts, and felt like crying through the entire book, and was haunted by it afterwards.
An AMAZING book I recommend to everyone, about a smaller, forgotten, version of the holocaust, seen through a fifteen year old's, a child's, eyes, with flashbacks that add a special something to the whole book, so you feel like you truly know the characters, and are disappointed when you turn the last few pages.
I bought this book as soon as I was finished, at 4 AM, and am going to read this book again, since none of the other books on my TBR pile can live up to this book, and it's amazing standards.
Everyone should read this!
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I love all your comments, and it makes me so freakishly happy to get the alert that I have a new one, so thank you!