Between Shades of Gray- Ruta Sepetys

Hey there! This post has been sitting in my drafts for weeks (literally). I've been so tired every day, but I really try to make this blog a priority. I started this post a few weeks ago, began my first paragraph, and then completely got stuck. That's actually one thing I've noticed about my blog: I seldom get writer's block when I'm posting. Anyways, I figured I'm definitely overdue for this post!

As most of you know, I'm heading into my Freshman year of high school and we had a summer reading! To prepare over the summer, we were told to read Between Shades of Gray (not to be confused with the not-so-school-appropriate novel 50 Shades of Grey). I had definitely never heard of Between Shades of Grey (BSoG) before, but I was completely willing to give it a try. 

I will preface my review with this: The book was incredible, deeply emotional, and beautifully written. That being said, it should never have been a summer novel! The book is devastating and focuses on a Lithuanian family during WWII. The main character, Lina Vilkas, is a skilled artist, a loving daughter, and most of all a brave sister. The story follows her and her family's journey through different awful encampments. Lina's love for those around her is only worth so much. A pocket watch, though... that could be worth a life.

I say that as a reference to the book. In early chapters, Lina's little brother is almost taken from them and their mom is able to trade a pocket watch to save her son. I have a lot of little notes like these that I took throughout the novel. By the end of my reading, I had pages of notes and examples of figurative language throughout the novel. BSoG honestly had so much figurative language throughout it. It was the perfect book to dive into imagery, personification, metaphors, similes, and all the other forms of figurative language! This is also what our final project focused on! I was assigned to create an old-fashioned newspaper based on the figurative language use in BSoG. I linked it above because (A) I'm quite proud of it and (B) it has even more information about the book.

Ultimately, I would recommend this book to every 9th grader I know. It's probably a little below my reading level, but sometimes it's nice to dive into other literary topics. I loved this book. It was so sad, but in a good way! I wouldn't recommend reading it over the summer, but this book was well worth it. Thank you for reading! Check back in soon and (as always) READ A BOOK!