Reviews

Stateless by Elizabeth Wein

adelaidebijou's review against another edition

adventurous emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

booknerdkc's review against another edition

adventurous emotional informative inspiring slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.5

koberhan's review

4.0

If you like airplanes and want to follow a group of young people as they fly around Europe and solve a murder mystery that has international consequences, then this is the book for you. It is 1937, and Stella North is chosen to represent Britain in the Europe’s first air race for young people. The race is supposed to showcase camaraderie in a time of political turmoil but results in murder instead. This is a fast-paced book that I enjoyed reading. Stella and her competitors were fun to get to know; although, a couple of them have rather sad backstories. This book provides an interesting glimpse into a politically charged time.

sarahjolioli's review

adventurous informative slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Diverse cast of characters? No

3.0

 Elizabeth Wein really knows her stuff, and her passion for all things aviation and history really shines through in her writing, but I just really couldn't get into this one. 

kdowli01's review against another edition

adventurous medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

thayerbowen's review against another edition

adventurous emotional informative mysterious tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Not as amazing as her book Verity, but that’s a 5-star for me so a high bar. The sexism was infuriating but that’s kind of the point. I warmed to the characters as the book went. 

jmwilson's review against another edition

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

kitnotmarlowe's review

adventurous challenging mysterious medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

I had no idea this book existed until I saw a publishing announcement on Elizabeth Wein's blog one day. I thought it sounded like something I would have demolished as a teen, but now that I'm an adult, I'm not in the business of adding new YA to my TBR. Then, for a week after that, I was so consumed by thinking about Stateless that I knew the only way to exorcise it from my brain was to read it. So I read it, by accident, all in one go between 9 p.m. and 3:30 a.m. Somehow my abiding love for Elizabeth Wein reversed the effects of my sleeping pills. When I finally finished it, I fell asleep immediately.

 

Tl; dr: This book accidentally possessed me, and I'm mad that I'm not 16 anymore so I could properly appreciate it. Here's a torrent of thoughts:

 

My verdict on Wein's post-Code Name Verity books (except for Black Dove, White Raven, which I couldn't get into) is that none reach the heights of CNV. I'm not just talking about the emotional investment and the all-timer twist, but I flipped through my copies of CNV, Rose Under Fire, and The Enigma Game, and with each subsequent book, there were fewer highlighted passages, and even those couldn't compete with Code Name Verity for emotional depth and clean, gut-wrenching prose. It's like she struck gold once and has only come up with copper since (I don't know how minerals work). Stateless has the flattest prose of the bunch; it's more consciously young than the others and more concerned with making a statement than telling a story.

 

There are a lot of indistinguishable boys in this novel. More than there needs to be. Did the boy from Greece matter? What about the Czech or Polish ones? I don't even remember if they spoke. In Chapter 18, we have to clarify that Prague is in Czechoslovakia. The first two legs of the race are told in great detail about the flying, while the rest are skimmed over like "I took off. I flew a little. Nobody was murdered. I landed alright." While I understand why the action switches from the race to Tony's escape, it's surprisingly inelegant. At least it's a blessed return to a single narrator after the awkwardly juggled perspectives of The Enigma Game.

 

If I had to rank Wein's books, I think they would go

1. Code Name Verity
2. The Pearl Thief
3. The Enigma Game
4. Stateless/Rose Under Fire

 

This has nothing to do with the book, but when I finally fell asleep, I had a vivid and extended dream about a Stella/Tony/Sebastian throuple.

Like, this dream had story beats and character arcs. This, obviously, does not happen in the book; I am delusional. Everyone in this book is assumed straight (disappointingly, imo, given the track record of the previous books!) Either Elizabeth Wein sent me that dream, or it's just another example of how my brain is diseased beyond repair. Nostradamus, prophet of our times etc. 

skylarkblue1's review against another edition

5.0

Content Warnings: Racism, Anti Semitism, Refugee situations, War, Blood, Medical Scenes, Murder, Airplane crash, Loss of a loved one, Nazi Germany

This book is set 2 years before the official start of WW2 and draws from many real life tragedies and issues from the time. It is also quite explicit from the state of Germany at that time alongside Italy and well.. The rest of Europe too.

I read this book for a book club this month, never heard of it before and didn’t go into it expecting too much as historical fiction + mystery generally isn’t my usual genre, and I know less than nothing about aircraft/flying. Nothing would have prepared me for the journey this book was going to take me on.

The year is 1937, the world still reeling after The Great War, facism and communism is spreading across Europe. An air race is set up to promote peace across Europe, with contestants from different countries racing against each other. 17-yr-old British contestant Stella North sets off across the first leg of the race but witnesses a potential murder of another contestant. Who went down? Who was in the attacking plane? Can she trust anyone?

I’ll be honest, a fair few of the characters felt very flat. There was a large cast here, with only 3 being the fully main characters, and a few others being secondary. The rest of the characters were very flat and barely there. Though honestly that didn’t matter too much overall. The main characters were very strong on their own, and the secondary characters added in anything that was missing quite well. All of them worked strongly together and were a joy to read about.

The writing I felt was a bit weak in the first half. The descriptive language was perfect, but repetition was a pretty bad problem. Most of the characters had their bio repeated every single time they were mentioned which did get really annoying - luckily this stops through the second half however. Some of the more powerful scenes were written very well, tension-filled scenes really had suspense in them and were gripping throughout the whole book. The whole second half swept me up so badly I actually forgot to annotate it as I read and ended up reading the entire second half in one go aha

emilybredberg's review against another edition

tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0