Book Rating: PG-13
Violence: PG-13 (This is a really dark story. Some of the violence was very descriptive as the Soviet Union punished the Lithuanians. It's not a great book if you're queasy when it comes to violence)
Language: PG (Mild language)
Sex: PG/PG-13 (There is no sex described in this book. However, because of how the Lithuanians were treated, there are allusions. One woman sells herself to the soldiers in order to feed herself and her child. One soldier gropes a teenager when she undresses to shower...)
Drugs/Alcohol: G
This book was heartbreaking. I don't know any other way to describe it. This was eye-opening to the troubles of the Eastern-European countries such as Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia during WWII. When thinking of the war, I automatically think of Hitler, Stalin, and the mass genocide of the Jewish people. I never realized that Eastern-Europeans faced a genocide of their own by the Soviet Union.
The story follows fifteen-year-old Lina Vilkas, her brother Jonas, and her mother who are taken from their middle-class home late at night by the NKVD which was the Soviet secret police. From Lithuania they are taken to a beet farm in Siberia by cattle train where they are forced to stand together in a crowded space for days on end.
The thing about this story is that it was totally and completely about the suffering of this family and the people around them. There were several points throughout the book when I had to sit back for awhile and put it down. There was one thing after another as Lina recounted what had happened to her and her family. The thing about suffering is that sometimes it just brings you down to a place of darkness and you need a moment to collect yourself enough to continue on. I wish I had the adequate words to describe how this book made me feel. I felt shocked as I read about this part of history that had never been introduced to me. I felt sadness for Lina as she watched as those around her withered and died. There was an ache in my chest as the book came to an end as I realized what these characters had been through in 320 pages.
There were strong characters throughout, but the one who carried the story was Lina's mother, Elena. I have never read a book where I was completely captured by the mother figure. Elena proved what being a parent was all about: Constant sacrifice. Even in the face of so much adversity, Elena constantly reassured their children that their father would come for them, that they would all get out as long as they stuck together. When food was scarce and Jonas was sick, Elena would sacrifice her rations for him until she was nothing more than a walking corpse. I admire her beyond words.
It's difficult to find a book that speaks to me on so many different levels. Each individual character went through a transformation during their year and half through the novel. Each one was changed. Some characters, villainous in the beginning were seen to possess kindness and understanding that was only seen in glimmers through their hard outer shells. This book really emphasizes that not all people are as they seem. Good people on the outside can have darkness on the inside and people who seem dark and ugly on the outside can be the ones to help others survive due to good deeds done with low whispers and serious faces.
I read Salt to the Sea late last year and thought it was such a monumental novel that was able to express a side of the war I hadn't learned about in a deep and impactful way. Between Shades of Gray has done the exact same thing. It is inspiring and a book every person should read to fully understand what we have always been fighting for: the basic human right of freedom.
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