cocoonofbooks 's review for:

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

4.0

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If I were rating this based on how I feel upon finishing the book, it would get 5 stars, because it's effing brilliant and I finally get why everyone keeps recommending it. However, I have to acknowledge that the whole first half of the book was a drag for me, and without the multiple recommendations and the fact that I was reading it for book club, I might have abandoned it. There are so many details about airplanes and military abbreviations and stuff that just makes my eyes glaze over, and I could not get into it. Then halfway through there's a plot twist

(that I saw coming from the first, because of the book opening with "Part 1: Verity" and who else could Part 2 be narrated by, despite what we're told? Maybe if the title of the book wasn't "Code Name Verity" it wouldn't have been clear right off that the part title was referring to the person narrating it.)

and then there's nothing to do but sit back and marvel at the author's -- and the character's -- brilliance, and get pulled along by the story. So it's difficult to rate a book where the first half is all, "OMG this book is so long and boring" and the second half is all, "OMG this book is amazing." But having pushed on through and read the whole thing, I have to agree wholeheartedly with all the people who have been singing this book's praises since it was released. A combination of a history lesson, female empowerment, and a ode to friendship, wrapped up with incredible plot twists, there is a lot to love about this book.