Between Shades of Gray
Ruta Sepetys, 2011
Historical fiction Young adultContemporary fiction
Lithuania, 1941: a fifteen-year-old artist is deported to Siberia with her mother and brother, and learns what a life is worth.
Feels like dread and hope. About family, war and memory.
A page from the book
The morning a boy's life is priced, and the price fits in a pocket.
Have you ever wondered what a human life is worth? That morning, my brother’s was worth a pocket watch. Ruta Sepetys.Sepetys was born in Detroit to a Lithuanian refugee father and worked in the music business before turning to fiction; she travelled the Baltics interviewing survivors for this, her debut novel.
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Questions readers ask
- What is Between Shades of Gray like?
- Feels like dread and hope. About family, war and memory.
- What should I read after Between Shades of Gray?
- If you liked Between Shades of Gray, try The Things They Carried (Tim O'Brien), The Nightingale (Kristin Hannah) and The Things We Cannot Say (Kelly Rimmer).
A taste of the feed
What it means for a story to be true when it never happened.
A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth. For example: Four guys go down a trail. A grenade sails out. One guy jumps on it and takes the blast, but it’s a killer grenade and everybody dies anyway. Before they die, though, one of the dead guys says, “The fuck you do that for?” and the jumper says, “Story of my life, man” and other guys start to smile but he’s dead. That’s a true story that never happened.
The Things They Carried · Tim O'Brien
What we keep in boxes when we can't admit we're letting go.
I see the rocking chair I used when my grandchildren were young, then an old crib and a ratty-looking rocking horse set on rusty springs, and the chair my daughter was refinishing when she got sick. Boxes are tucked along the wall, marked “Xmas,” “Thanksgiving,” “Easter,” “Halloween,” “Serveware,” “Sports.” In those boxes are the things I don’t use much anymore but can’t bear to part with. For me, admitting that I won’t decorate a tree for Christmas is giving up, and I’ve never been good at letting go. Tucked in the corner is what I am looking for: an ancient steamer trunk covered in travel stickers.
The Nightingale · Kristin Hannah
What goes missing when a family stops asking questions?
What happens when stories like theirs are lost? What happens when there’s no one left to pass your experience on to, or you just can’t bring yourself to share it?
The Things We Cannot Say · Kelly Rimmer
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