Book Club Book Review: Between Shades Of Gray By Ruta Sepetys

My Book Club read for the month of February was Between Shades Of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

This is based on a true story from the 1940s during World War 11 and told by 15 year old Lina, who along with her 10 year old brother and parents are taken from their comfortable home in Lithuanian by the Russians because they were on a list of people thought to be anti-Soviet.

Taken from their home town, they travelled with hundreds of others, in poor conditions across the Arctic Circle to Siberia. Most of the men were sent off to prisons and never seen by their families again, whilst the women, children and elderly were sent to work camps to work for little food and poor living conditions.

Lina is a confident teenager and an artist who draws pictures of her experience and these pictures have been turned into the words of the novel. The book was written in such a way that I felt the hunger pains when they did, I felt the sadness and helpless and could even visualise the drawings in detail.

This was a really moving and beautifully written book about such a sad part of our history.

I recommend this to young adult fiction fans interested in history and the forgotten stories of World War 11.

I give this book 4 stars out of  5

Jarrah Jungle's Star Rating:

1 Bad - I'd rather eat brussel sprouts topped with anchovies than read this again
2 Not Good - I'd rather watch paint dry than read this again
3 Ok - I'm sitting on the fence - its not great but not terrible either
4 Good - I'd pass up the last tim tam for this read
5 Great - I'd pass up a date with Johnny Depp for this read

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[Image via Amazon]

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