Review by New York Times Review
A GROUP OF TEENAGE REFUGEES meet on the road in the chaotic countryside of East Prussia in winter 1945. The Nazi Reich is collapsing all around them, and they, like hundreds of thousands, are fleeing the wrathful Soviet advance. They are trapped between their German conquerors and their terrifying Russian "liberators." Their story is told through the voices of Joana, a pretty Lithuanian nurse; Florian, a Prussian with a mysterious letter of passage from a high-ranking Nazi officer; and Emilia, an idealistic but damaged Polish girl in a pink knit cap. Thrown together, struggling to survive, they at first hardly trust one another enough even to exchange names, and so they often just use epithets: "the knight," "the nurse," "the Polish girl," "the wandering boy," "the shoe poet." (The last, an old cobbler, gets his name from his philosophy: "The shoes always tell the story.") Each has secrets - the galling histories that haunt anyone who has lived through war, flight and deprivation. In her debut novel, "Between Shades of Gray," Ruta Sepetys shined light on the largely forgotten plight of the Baltic peoples crushed between the great powers at the beginning of World War II. Now she does the same for these survivors trapped in the interstices of history: neither German nor Soviet, trying to escape from a no-man's land neither Axis nor Allied in a war already lost but not yet won. The pacing is swift as a thriller as this group evades the vengeful brutalities of the encroaching Red Army - and then plays a dangerous game by lying to the Wehrmacht in order to secure themselves spaces on a refugee ship before the whole region collapses. In brief chapters, the narrative point of view swarms from character to character; the book's drama comes not simply from the battlefield action - the bombings, the armies on the move - but from the constant wounding fire of lies and revelations, self-deceptions and desperate ententes. Occasionally, there's even humor in these shifts : We read the blustering love letters of a proud young Nazi named Alfred only to discover he's actually an acne-ridden deck swabber who spends his hours shirking in a supply closet. "Imagine, my darling," he writes his sweet Hannelore, "your Alfred is saving 2,000 lives." Then he's interrupted by a barked "Have you cleaned the toilets yet, Frick?" One thing that makes these distinctive characters so compelling for both adult and teenage readers is an awareness that though they may be fictional, the horrors and small acts of heroism we see played out before us could essentially be real - they are statistically real. World War II - any war - is constructed out of millions of such scenes of betrayal, sudden generosity, violence and canny alliance. There is only one larger-than-life detail: One of the characters carries the key to a real World War II mystery. But Sepetys is too invested in the essential reality of the story she tells to treat even that spy-novel circumstance as an invitation for easy heroics. Looming above the personal struggles of these young refugees is a devastating historical tragedy: The ship onto which they flee with the ugly inevitability of fate is the Wilhelm Gustloff, which was sunk by a Soviet submarine in January 1945. Of the estimated 10,500 people on board, more than 9,000 perished in the icy seas. We watch these characters start to find love for one another and protect one another even as we recognize the heartbreaking certainty that not all of them will make it off that ship alive. It would be near blasphemous to use suffering on this scale as the backdrop to provide the beats of suspense and near escape if it weren't for Sepetys's clear commitment to preserving the memory of the forgotten, the drowned. Though there are a few clumsy gestures at moments of great crisis - as a mother dies in childbirth, a startled stork takes off from the roof - the most moving and even uncomfortable images are clearly taken from Sepetys's extensive sources: A mother desperate to get her baby off the sinking ship hurls the infant down to a sailor and misses; the corpses of children in life jackets float upside down because of the disproportional size of their heads. Not merely harrowing, such images remind us that even "the good war" was a messy calamity. And once again, Ruta Sepetys acts as champion of the interstitial people so often ignored - whole populations lost in the cracks of history. M.T. ANDERSON is the author, most recently, of "Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad."
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [February 7, 2016]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Shipwrecks and maritime disasters are of fathomless fascination, with ships such as the Titanic and the Lusitania household names. It's interesting that the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff during WWII, which led to the largest loss of life on a single ship in history, goes largely unremarked upon at least in America. The numbers are staggering: far over capacity, the ship was carrying approximately 10,582 passengers when it was struck by Soviet torpedoes, and more than 9,400 of those passengers perished in the ensuing wreck, a death toll that dwarfs the Titanic's assumed losses (around 1,500). Part of the neglect might be due to timing. The ship was evacuating refugees and German citizens from Gotenhafen, Poland, when it was sunk in the Baltic Sea in the winter of 1945. Astounding losses defined WWII, and this became yet another tragedy buried under the other tragedies after all, even 9,400 is dwarfed by 60 million. But it was a tragedy, and, like all tragedies, it broke the people involved down to their barest parts. Sepetys has resurrected the story through the eyes of four young characters trying to reach safety as the Russian army advances: Joana, a Lithuanian nurse; Emilia, a pregnant Polish 15-year-old; Florian, a Prussian artist carrying dangerous cargo; and Alfred, a German naval soldier stationed on the Wilhelm Gustloff. Each has been touched by war and is hunted by the past, and, determined to get on a boat in any way possible, hurtling unknowingly toward disaster. With exquisite prose, Sepetys plumbs the depths of her quartet of characters, bringing each to the breaking point and back, shaping a narrative that is as much about the intricacies of human nature as it is about a historical catastrophe. Nominated for the Morris Award for her first novel, Between Shades of Gray (2011), Sepetys returns to those roots with another harrowing, impeccably researched story of hardship and survival in Eastern Europe. When reading a book so likely to end in tears, one inclination is to avoid getting attached to any of the characters, but that's next to impossible here, so thoroughly does Sepetys mine their inner landscapes. That doesn't mean they are all likable as it breeds heroes, so, too, does calamity breed cowards and opportunists but it does make it difficult to think of them as anything other than real people. After all, the ship was very real. It does the people aboard a disservice not to reflect them the best one can. In many ways, the greatest punishment and the greatest of all tragedies is to be forgotten. This haunting gem of a novel begs to be remembered, and in turn, it tries to remember the thousands of real people its fictional characters represent. What it asks of us is that their memories and their stories not be abandoned to the sea.--Reagan, Maggie Copyright 2015 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Set in East Prussia during the brutal winter of 1945, these stories of four very different teenagers-three refugees escaping their disparate war-torn homelands, and a Nazi sailor obsessed with Hitler-Intertwine when they all end up on the doomed ship Wilhelm Gustloff. The four narrators (Jorjeana Marie, Will Damron, Cassandra Morris, and Michael Crouch) are superbly cast, each taking on the role of a main character with a distinctive voice that perfectly matches his or her role: the young, vulnerable voice of Emilia, a sweet Polish 16-year-old who has suffered too much tragedy and emotional trauma; the warm, caring tones of Joana, a Latvian nurse, who is nurturing and perceptive; the deep, guarded voice of Florian, a mysterious Prussian hiding a secret; and most memorable of all, the high, thin, nasal voice of the Nazi sailor Alfred, dripping with smug arrogance and self-righteousness. The story's plot and pacing translate beautifully to the audio medium; the intimate interior monologues reveal character development while fast-paced, gripping action scenes of danger and narrow escapes create a sense of suspense. The result is a riveting audiobook that will have listeners on the edge of their seats while also educating them about a little-known but tragic chapter of WWII history. Ages 12-up. A Philomel hardcover. (Feb.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
January 1945. The war in Europe is in its end stages as German forces are beaten back by the Allied armies. To escape the Soviet advance on the eastern front, thousands of refugees flee to the Polish coast. In this desperate flight for freedom, four young people-each from very different backgrounds and each with dark secrets-connect as they vie for passage on the Willhelm Gustloff, a former pleasure cruiser used to evacuate the refugees. Packed to almost ten times its original capacity, the ship is hit by Soviet torpedoes fewer than 12 hours after leaving port. As the ship sinks into the icy waters of the Baltic Sea, what was supposed to be an avenue for escape quickly becomes another fight to survive the randomness of war. VERDICT YA author Sepetys (Between Shades of Gray; Out of the Easy) describes an almost unknown maritime disaster whose nearly 9,000 casualties dwarfed those of both the Titanic and the Lusitania. Told alternately from the perspective of each of the main characters, the novel also highlights the struggle and sacrifices that ordinary people-children-were forced to make. At once beautiful and heart-wrenching, this title will remind readers that there are far more casualties of war than are recorded in history books. Sure to have crossover appeal for adult readers.-Elisabeth Clark, West Florida P.L., Pensacola © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by School Library Journal Review
Gr 8 Up-In East Prussia at the end of World War II, a group of refugees are desperately making their way toward the one chance they have at survival: passage aboard the Wilhelm Gustloff. Braving the unforgiving elements, violent soldiers, and an uncertain future, Joana, Emilia, and Florian narrate their harrowing journey, along with unsettling chapters from Alfred, a Nazi sailor. Sepetys brings to vivid life the events and repercussions of this little-known piece of 20th-century history. © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
Near the end of World War II, thousands of refugees fled West through Eastern Europe toward the Baltic Sea, attempting to outrun the advancing Russian army. Sepetys tells the story of three such refugees and one Nazi sailor as their stories converge on the trek toward Gotenhafen and the doomed German transport ship Wilhelm Gustloff. This richly voiced production perfectly suits the brief chapters, which alternate among the four teenage characters' points of view: Prussian art-lover Florian, Lithuanian nurse Joana, pregnant Polish girl Emilia, and Alfred, a lowly and deluded German deckhand. Careful pacing and (for the most part) even, non-histrionic tones illuminate each character's burdens and secrets. The narrators wisely do not try to imitate the characters' Eastern European accents, allowing listeners to identify easily and profoundly with the universal wartime emotions of courage, hatred, sorrow, fear, and hope encountered during the shocking tragedy of history's worst maritime disaster. mary burkey (c) Copyright 2016. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
January 1945: as Russians advance through East Prussia, four teens' lives converge in hopes of escape. Returning to the successful formula of her highly lauded debut, Between Shades of Gray (2011), Sepetys combines research (described in extensive backmatter) with well-crafted fiction to bring to life another little-known story: the sinking (from Soviet torpedoes) of the German ship Wilhelm Gustloff. Told in four alternating voicesLithuanian nurse Joana, Polish Emilia, Prussian forger Florian, and German soldier Alfredwith often contemporary cadences, this stints on neither history nor fiction. The three sympathetic refugees and their motley companions (especially an orphaned boy and an elderly shoemaker) make it clear that while the Gustloff was a German ship full of German civilians and soldiers during World War II, its sinking was still a tragedy. Only Alfred, stationed on the Gustloff, lacks sympathy; almost a caricature, he is self-delusional, unlikable, a Hitler worshiper. As a vehicle for exposition, however, and a reminder of Germany's role in the war, he serves an invaluable purpose that almost makes up for the mustache-twirling quality of his petty villainy. The inevitability of the ending (including the loss of several characters) doesn't change its poignancy, and the short chapters and slowly revealed back stories for each character guarantee the pages keep turning. Heartbreaking, historical, and a little bit hopeful. (author's note, research and sources, maps) (Historical fiction. 12-16) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
