Rose Under Fire {Code Name Verity #2}

Published Date: September 2, 2014
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Author: Elizabeth Wein
Pages: 384
Genres: Young Adult, Historical Fiction, WWII

You can read the review for Rose Under Fire here. And my review of Code Name Verity here.

There’s no greater crime against humanity than those committed in the concentration/work/prison camps run by the Nazi Germans. There’s no greater sorrow than the accounts of those who suffered and survived those camps. The stories that surfaced are enough to break your heart. Primo Levi, Sara Nomberg-Przytyk, Eli Wiesel and even my own grandfather have told their stories. This is Rose’s story.

Told in a journal type {like CNV}, Rose Under Fire follows Rose Justice. She’s an American girl, a poet, a girl scout, and a badass pilot for the ATA {Air Transport Auxiliary} in Britain. She’s doing what she was born to do. Fly. But little does she know that her ferry pilot job will land her in hell. While Rose wasn’t real, the women of Ravensbruck Concentration Camp were very real. The experiences you read about DID happen to these women and young girls. Google it. You’ll be appalled.

Guys this book was ridiculously great! Wein did an excellent job sprinkling the historical in with the fiction. I was happy to have Maddie back and happier to meet Rose. But soon the happy went away and it was replaced by sorrow and struggle and hope. I held my shit together until the very end. Then the flood gates opened. I wept for those who lost and those who fought. I wept for the ones who gave up their lives to save others. I wept for my own grandpa, thinking of his time served in a POW camp and how his account mirrored Rose’s in so many ways {questionable turnip soup, harsh punishments, freezing German winters with rotting coats, horrible lice infestations, chronic bronchitis, extreme weight loss…to name a few}. I wept for survival and for liberation. For life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Everyone needs to read Code Name Verity and Rose Under Fire. The women of the RAF and ATA had me all #girlpower and then made me wish I was a pilot. I have so much respect for these women and what they helped do for our boys on the front. If you don’t read these and love them, then don’t tell me. I don’t want a reason to not like you. Just kidding… but really.

V for Victory