A review by megatza
I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys

challenging dark informative sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Narrated by Edoardo Ballerini

Genre: historical fiction
Bucharest, Romania 1989

Cristian Florescu is a normal teenager , a dreamer who wants to go to university. Except a normal teenage boy in Romania in 1989 isn’t just mooning over teenage girls: he’s also watching over his shoulder, wondering who may be listening and reporting him to the government. He and his family live in a tiny apartment, and his parents wait in long lines for food and household goods after long shifts at work. When a government agent accuses him of treason for having an American dollar, Cristian makes a bargain to spy on the son of the American diplomat in exchange for medication for his ailing grandfather. No one outside of Romania knows how truly terrible the living conditions are. But there is unrest in the streets, and the country stands on the cusp of a revolution. 

This book is a brutal gut punch - graphic and heart wrenching, and important to read. The fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe happened within my own lifetime, and I have very vague memories of events in the early 90s. Having just spent two weeks in Poland and Hungary, this also hit a bittersweet chord for me. I spent several hours (and wished for more) at the Solidarity Museum and Lenin Shipyard in Gdańsk. In 1970, people lost their lives in a strike, and in 1980, the Solidarity Union began the decade long bloodless revolution to bring democracy to Poland. This is mentioned in half a sentence in I Must Betray You. In Hungary, dictatorship looked a little different, but the devastation of the Uprising in Budapest in the 60s had echoes around Eastern Europe as well. We think of those things as a distant past in a faraway land, but they really aren't.

Ruta Sepetys has a gift of bringing out the human side of terrible tragedies. This book is YA, because it centers around 17-year-olds, and she presents the story of the revolution in Romania through the eyes of a teenager. But it's dark and difficult because life was dark and difficult. There are sparks of hope, of course. Don't assume that because this is YA that it's dumbed down. Sepetys is meticulous in her research and depiction. Don't sleep on this, or any of her other work.


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