The story begins in 1943 amid World War 2 when a British spy named Julie is captured by the Gestapo in Nazi-occupied France. Taken to an old Parisian hotel transformed into a prison for war criminals, Julie is tortured and emotionally manipulated by the leader of the Gestapo, Hauptsturmfuhrer von Linden. She is then forced to turn on the Allies by sharing information with the Germans and is given 2 weeks to write down all of the information she has or she will be executed.
Julie unfortunately doesn’t have much information to provide. During wartime, they only share the information necessary to complete their mission, so there isn’t any major breach if someone is captured. So she begins to tell the story of Maddie, a friend from before being captured. Maddie was a pilot trained by one of Britain’s only female pilots before the war began. She began working in a radar tower for an airstrip controlled by the Allies. This is where she meets Julie, and they begin a long-lasting friendship.
Maddie soon gets recruited to fly transports and ferrying planes across allied countries. This separates her and Julie for almost 2 years. They mostly communicate through letters but they occasionally get to see each other. They are united when Maddie transports Julie to Nazi-occupied France. But over the flight, they are shot at, and their engines get hit. Maddie instructs Julie to bail out on a parachute She does leaving Maddie behind on a burning plane, not knowing what happened to her.
I overall really liked this book. I thought there were very enticing twists to the storyline and I found that having female main characters was especially inspiring, due to most historical fiction novels having male main characters. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys historical fiction. As well as anyone who likes a book with a lot of twists and turns.
Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein is available to check out from the Mission Viejo Library. It is also available to download for free from Libby.
Mission Viejo Library Teen Voice 