Between Shades of Gray
by Ruta Sepetys
Finished: March 18, 2015
My Goodreads rating: 5 stars *****
Before I start, no, this is not a book in the series of Fifty Shades of Grey. Shame on you if that’s the reason you clicked on this post.
Between Shades of Gray was a book about an issue during World War II that isn’t usually focused on—stories of displaced Europeans, like the Lithuanian main character in this book, Lina. She and her family are forced out of their homes and sentenced to hard labor in Siberia for virtually no crime they had committed.
Besides the heart-wrenching hardships Lina and her family face throughout the novel, the book is a very easy read. I had a difficult time putting it down once I started, and the short, two-page chapters made me keep saying to myself, “Well, I’ll just read one more chapter…” You can see how that turned out.
Lina’s talent for drawing and art in general are what made this story such a unique one. Throughout her time in the work camps, she would document the story of herself and the other prisoners through drawings and sketches, on whatever materials she could get her hands on. It was a new twist on another historical fiction World War II horror story.
I would recommend this book to anyone up for reading about another side of World War II that isn’t so often focused on.
An Infinite Library 