Rose Under Fire (Code Name Verity Book 2)

I liked this book very much. There were parts that I found even more engaging than Code Name Verity.

The only issue I had with the audio book was the shrill voice the narrator used for one of the main secondary characters. All in all, I thought it was a great book and narration.

Rose Justice is an American pilot for the ATA during WWII. She is captured and sent to an all women concentration camp, Ravensbruck. Just like all concentration camp stories, Rose is in for a very horrible and difficult time. Told through her journal from before and after the concentration camp, mostly after, we get an intimate look at life inside the camp, learning to live afterward, and even a glimpse at the trials that took place once the war was over.

Rose Under Fire is a companion to Code Name Verity. You do not have to read Verity to understand this book, but I think everyone should read it anyway. Maddie is back in this one as Rose's friend. Some people in Maddie's past are referenced, but you aren't told what happened. If I were reading this book without having read Verity, I would absolutely want to go back and see what happened in Verity. There are a lot more surprises in Verity that might not be as shocking if Rose is read first.

I felt that Verity was a more powerful story, but I enjoyed reading this one more. I do have a soft spot for concentration camp stories, and it made it even better that this was fictional. I could really get into the characters and root for all of them, but at least I know in my heart that the specific casualties were fictitious. Verity was full of technical information about airplanes, so much that I found myself skimming over those parts. That was definitely not the case this time. Rose's flying passion was part of her, but it didn't take over the story. There was a lot of poetry this time, something else Rose was passionate about. I am not a big fan of poetry within stories. It didn't ruin the book for me, as I understand that her poetry was necessary in keeping the morale up for so many girls in the camp.

Wein did a wonderful job portraying life in a concentration camp. She developed the characters so amazingly, and the story was detailed, accurate, believable, and compelling. I was not shocked by it, as I have read plenty of biographies from concentration camp survivors, but I still learned from it. Before this story, I had never heard of the Ravensbruck "Rabbits."

Thankfully there is quite a bit of closure in this story. I am not left wondering who survived and who did not. There are so many emotions that ran through me while reading: sorrow, happiness, disappointment, hope and anger just to name a few. Any book that can give me so many emotions and make it almost impossible for me to put down is a definite winner.

Free ARC provided through NetGalley

An 18-year-old American girl gets the chance to pilot planes in England in World War II through the Air Transport Auxiliary, giving us a candid view of the war, the Blitz, and especially fear of V1 guided missiles. In the second and third parts, she experiences a concentration camp, lives with victims of Nazi medical experimentation, and survives to witness the Nuremberg trials. A final essay on the principles of flying ties all the experiences together to convey wisdom through explanation of lift, weight, drag, and thrust. I loved the book and lent it to the 13-year-old reader across the street; she said the same, even though the book says for 14+. Author Elizabeth Wein included a bibliography, list of survivor accounts, and Internet sources testifying to the research behind the book and offers students lots of places to go for more information. This novel offers a wonderful way for teens to get into history. Plus the protagonist loves Edna St. Vincent Millay and credits her love of poetry for helping her survive Ravensbruck. Lots to love here, especially if you're a history teacher.

Rose Justice is an American teen fresh out of high school who isn't satisfied with just sitting in Pennsylvania hearing about the war, she wants to do something. Thanks to her father's training, she can, because Rose Justice has been flying planes since she was twelve. Her British Uncle gets her a position with the ATA in England, so she's taxiing planes all over the UK. Rose and the other ATA girls can't help but feel they should be doing more. Rose's Uncle pulls some strings to get her as his pilot for a trip to the newly liberated Paris in the fall of 1944. The drop off is successful, but on the way home, Rose comes across a flying bomb. She decides to try something called a taran, which is buzzing the bomb close enough to throw off it's flight and miss its mark. In throwing off the bomb, though, she also manages to throw off her navigation and loses her way. Soon it is horrifyingly clear she has gone the wrong way when to Nazi fighter planes intercept her. Rose is unarmed, and the Nazi pilots force her to land at a place they choose...somewhere deep in German territory. Rose is caught. The Nazis transfer her to Ravensbruck concentration camp, and Rose soon finds out that the horrifying tales she heard on the BBC radio about Nazi concentration camps was not just trumped up British anti-Nazi propaganda; in fact, it's even worse than the BBC let on. Rose is put into a Block house with some of the prisoners dubbed "Rabbits;" they are the poor girls and women the Nazi doctors decided to do experimental operations on before finishing them off with a bullet or some gas. To help keep herself sane, Rose often composes or recites poems. The Rabbits in her block, Róza and Karolina especially, charge Rose with the task of committing the names of all of the Rabbits to memory. They want the world to know the truth about what the Nazis did to them. So Rose works on memorizing the names of all the Rabbits, and also just on learning how to survive all the horrors of Ravensbruck.

I have read several books about prisoners during WWII and the trials of surviving a concentration camp, but I don't think I've ever come across one that focused on telling the world the plight of the Rabbits (which were a real group of women) or which so vividly portrayed the agonizing recovery period for concentration camp victims upon re-entry into normal life. Rose's story is heartbreaking, but at the same time inspirational and hopeful. I think it also does a great job of portraying women so devastated by what happened they struggle to find the strength to even tell anyone about it, let alone confront their abusers during trial. I love how normal Rose is. She isn't a super hero. She isn't Jules of Code Name Verity, and she isn't her friend Maddie (yes, that's the link between the two books...Maddie is also Rose's friend though Rose arrived at the ATA too late to know Jules). Rose is an average 18 yr old girl who is sometimes brave but more often is too scared to move. And I think that shows the greater beauty of when she does do something brave, because you know she is rising above her normal tendencies and desires, often for the sake of others. And that is what makes this such a beautiful tale.

Also, kudos to Elizabeth Wein to her dedication to writing this authentically. How many authors would be willing to go through the Ravensbruck Summer School to get a more authentic feel for what it was like to be a prisoner at Ravensbruck?

Due to the realistic descriptions of concentration camp life, I would only recommend this for reader's mature enough to handle the content.

Notes on content: About 9 uses of very strong American language (some of the prisoners and one guard have coarse language), and a handful of minor to moderate swear words scattered throughout. The one guard tells that her former boss raped her and later that the Russians rape women in towns they "free," but it is just stated bluntly with no details. The concentration camp victims suffer all sorts of horrendous tortures. Several are beat repeatedly. The Rabbits tell about their horrible operations and experiments done on them, mostly on their legs. Several people are shot or gassed off page. One of Rose's prison duties is removing the dead from the barracks. Etc. Wein gives a very accurate and clear portrayal of the horrors of the camp without ever getting excessively gory.

"Rose Under Fire" is an emotionally-charged, gripping story of survival that heats up in 1945 when Rose Justice an American pilot returning a Spitfire to England downs a Doodlebug (flying bomb) only to be captured by two Luftwaffe "Schwalben Swallows". Taken to Germany Rose spends the next six months living in the nightmarish hell of Ravensbrück, the notorious women's concentration camp where she finds hope in the friendship of a prison family whose bravery and loyalty return her to freedom.

Set in WWII in an infamous women's camp the reader is swept up in the realistic horror, inhumanity and deprivations that the political prisoners faced through Rose's writing, her poetry and her interaction with the other prisoners. With in-depth research including survivor accounts Elizabeth Wein skilfully weaves an historically-based plot that's chilling and deeply moving as it deals with the brutality and callousness of medical experiments that leave women crippled or dead as well as the vicious beatings inflicted for the least infraction as prisoners are systematically dehumanized or murdered. Yet through all the terror to keep their sanity Róża holds tight to her acerbic sense of humor and Rose her poetry, her memories of Nick and her family at home in Pennsylvania.

Tension and apprehension escalate when the number of prisoners increases and the Nazis built two gas chambers. Yet amid the spiraling intensity, the uncertainty and their frightening reality the story never loses its sense of hope as the women in Block 32 cling to bonds of friendship and loyalty while listening to Rose's poetry and her Nick tales, making plans to hide the "Rabbits and preparing the groundwork for an escape that will bring the horrors of Ravensbrück to an oblivious world.

Unforgettable, their personalities complex as they face unique challenges the characters infuse the drama with high-emotion, power, and authenticity. Rose Justice a daring pilot who began flying at age 12 is determined, undaunted and brave until faced with a reality after her escape that leaves her terrified and avoiding anything or anyone outside her comfort zone. Róża Czajkowska imprisoned at fourteen for her resistance activities and experimented on in the camp is defiant, thorny and sarcastic. Her hope like that of bold, motherly Lisette and plucky Karolina lies in revealing the inhumanity and the deaths of "Rabbits to the unsuspecting. Irina Korsakova the Russian fighter pilot is resilient and daring while the French resistance courier Elodie is creative, resourceful and a risk-taker.

"Rose Under Fire" is an exceptional novel that grips the reader from the first page to the last. I thoroughly enjoyed it and rate it highly.

Rose Under Fire, by Elizabeth Wein, is the companion novel to Code Name Verity. This book starts a bit after Code Name Verity ends and features only a few of the same characters. The main character here is Rose, an American pilot working for the Air Transport Auxiliary in England. One day, she flies off-course and is caught by the Germans and sent to a concentration camp, Ravensbruck. She spends six months there before she escapes with some friends, and then she shares her story through journal entries.

I love that Wein gives friendship so much the spotlight in her novels, much more than romance, and that she makes clear that platonic relationships can do so much to help us through horrible times and keep us trucking on. There was so much sacrifice of one person for another in this book, so much attention to the greater good. I think that was wonderful. And, importantly, I loved that Rose was always the protagonist and hero of her own story. She instigates the action in her life; she gets herself into a mess and she works with a team to get herself back out of it. And then, when she's out, she deals with pulling together the pieces of herself to become a working human being again.

I also appreciated how much time Wein spent describing Rose's post-traumatic stress disorder when she got back to "normal life." She spends weeks cooped up in her hotel room. She can't put on clothes. She knows what she went through but has trouble remembering the details of just how miserable and horrifying it was. And when she has to help her friend to overcome those same demons, does it to make sure that they are both able to live full and valuable lives, it is a true act of courage that, I think, would go unnoticed by most people.

There was so much subtlety in Rose Under Fire. Yes, there are subtle allusions to the horrors of the concentration camps. But what Wein makes clear is that when you are living in such terrible circumstances, you need, desperately, to find a way to cope with the horrors around you. And so Rose made up poems, told her friends stories, let her mind wander when standing out in freezing cold, ate the food that was offered to her, and then sternly didn't let herself dwell on anything that could cause a breakdown. And then after she is out, we see just how much she struggles with acclimatizing herself back to the life that everyone wants her to lead. How hard it is to carry out her task to Tell The World of the atrocities she witnessed while also trying to forget them so that she can move on with her own life.

At first, when I read this book, I almost thought it was too happy. Not that it's happy at all, really, but Rose spends much of her time talking about the small celebrations and sweet kindnesses that were shared between the women in the camp, how they all stood up for each other and stood firm in their defiance. She doesn't talk much about the vicious fights over food or about one prisoner giving up another, or all of the beatings and cruelties she witnessed. But I also think that much of that is due to the survival mechanisms that our bodies and minds do for us, to shield us from what we are witness to. I struggle, too, because does every book about the Holocaust have to focus on the cruelties and the evils and the back-stabbing and the starvation and the genocide for us to realize that it was a dark time in our world's history? Or can't we understand the horrors of it even while shedding light on the good that people did, the risks they were willing to undertake for other people? Does focusing on the good take away from the gravity of the situation?

And I don't mean to make it sound as though Rose Under Fire is a happy book. It's not. The pain runs very deep and through every page of this story. But it also offers glimpses into the micro-activities and relationships of concentration camp life that we often do not get to see because we are so overtaken with the macro-level horror of it all.

I loved and appreciated this book almost as much as its predecessor, Code Name Verity.

It took a little while for the POV character to hook me. Part of the delay came from the fact that Rose writes poetry, and I wasn't initially that impressed with her poems. But as her experiences change, so does the quality of her poetic voice.

There is a great deal of historically accurate horror here, forming a vivid and heartbreaking backdrop to the pivotal friendships between beautifully realized characters. Wein has a gift for showing female friendship. I'd be interested in finding out whether she can show male friendship with the same authenticity and depth. I hope she tackles that challenge someday, if she hasn't already.

Another theme of this and the previous book, and just as well presented: courage. The courage of these characters is individually distinct, complex, convincing, and profoundly moving.

Elizabeth Wein has hit the jackpot writing kickass female characters in terrible wartime circumstances, and after reading “Rose Under Fire,” I’m sure not going to complain. A sort of companion novel to “Code Name Verity,” in that a few of the characters share screen time, “Rose Under Fire” features Rose Justice, an American transfer pilot who ends up interred at Ravensbruck concentration camp.

One of the tactics Wein uses to great effect is the same epistolary format as “Verity,” which allows readers to learn about the events of the story after they’ve already unfolded. That said, the opening and closing sections are told in real time and recounted as they happen, but don’t comprise the meat of the story.

That distinction belongs to the middle section, where we see Rose and her fellow prisoners turned allies struggling to survive in the dangerous, depleted women’s branch of Ravensbruck in the final stages of the war. The character personalities and interactions here were what made the story for me. I loved the variety of women presented on the page here. Old, young, formerly rich, formerly poor, some with families they worried about, some whose only family consisted of fellow prisoners. Stubborn and sacrificial and loyal and endlessly creative.

One of the things I loved about each and every one of the named women was their almost easy bravery in a situation that was the opposite of easy. They never hesitated to step in and help each other, to hide fellow prisoners or move people throughout the camp in order to keep them alive a few more days. They took endless risks for each other and bolstered each other’s spirits in silly, familiar, universal ways.

Even though the body count wasn’t as high as other concentration camp novels I’ve read, the characters are so REAL that every loss tears at you. Close as V-day was then, it wasn’t quite close enough for all of them. The poetry included throughout only hammers the inevitability of mortality home. Some of it written by Rose, some quoted from modern (at the time) poet Edna St. Vincent Millay, all of it a heartbreaking reflection on war and death and the people affected by both.

One of the other unique qualities of ‘Rose’ was its thorough discussion of the medical experimentation that so many prisoners were subjected to. It’s an excellent marker of how well-researched a novel is when some of the details casually included within the context of other scenes turn your stomach.

I even appreciated the leap ahead to the Nuremberg trials and the participation of many characters that made up the final part of the novel. Nuremberg is taught so widely in history classes but so often over-looked, that discussing the impact of the trials felt like a fitting tie-in to a story whose theme was “tell the world.”

I actually liked “Rose Under Fire” more than “Code Name Verity.” Don’t get me wrong, both are fantastic additions to the World War II genre–which hadn’t found much of a purchase within the YA readership until recently. There aren’t any marked differences between them that account for my preference. For me, the line between good historical fiction and great historical fiction lies in where the story resonates and the magnitude to which it does.

And “Rose Under Fire” is great historical fiction. Definitely give this one a look.