Review: Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

I have two weeks. You’ll shoot me at the end no matter what I do.
That’s what you do to enemy agents. It’s what we do to enemy agents. But I look at all the dark and twisted roads ahead and cooperation is the easy way out. Possibly the only way out for a girl caught red-handed doing dirty work like mine — and I will do anything, anything, to avoid SS-Hauptsturmführer von Linden interrogating me again.
He has said that I can have as much paper as I need. All I have to do is cough up everything I can remember about the British War Effort. And I’m going to. But the story of how I came to be here starts with my friend Maddie. She is the pilot who flew me into France — an Allied Invasion of Two.
We are a sensational team.




Release Date: February 6th, 2012
Series? No
Pages: 452
Publisher: Egmont Press

LONG STORY SHORT:


Code Name Verity was an entertaining, interesting, intriguing, funny novel that I enjoyed reading a great deal but that I was not obsessed with. Honestly, I don't get all the hype. I mean, the premise is awesome, it's something different - especially in YA and - a big plus - has a lot of girl power. But overall, there are just books that got me way more excited...

REVIEW:

I looked forward to reading this one so much. The premise sounded epic - in my opinion, I was looking for something new and refreshing - without all the YA cliches and your typical teen drama around love, romance and jealousy. In a way, that's what I got. But I expected it to be better. I wanted it to be better. That's the thing with high expectations, I guess.

The main characters were both funny narrators, great storytellers and one of them fooled me. Perfectly. Although I somewhat, kind of knew I'd be fooled. It totally caught me off guard. But then, I wasn't like "Woah...no...what...I...It's just". I was more like "Ah. Okay, so that makes sense...". You know it didn't capture me. Nothing in this book really captured me. There was not a lot of suspense, not a lot of action.

The storytelling was awesome, I will give it that. I also think that might be why most other people loved it so much. It's amazing how the author lets two stories flow together and how she makes them seem so real. Also, the stories are heart breaking, raw, they could bring you to tears.
But then again, storytelling is not the only thing I look for in a book and not what I was looking for in this book. I want to identify with the characters, to find myself lost in a world and to feverishly wait for the ending to reveal the big BAM.

Code Name Verity was a good novel, yes. I did enjoy it. I would recommend it. But I also found it dragging a bit and can't really understand the hype....Again, my disappointment is probably caused by my completely different expectations going into this novel.

For people who love: Historical Fiction, heartbreaking stories about friendship

RATING: 2/3 Smarties