Code Name Verity

By: Elizabeth Wein

Narrated by: Morven Christie, Lucy Gaskell

Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins

Publisher's summary

Code Name Verity is a compelling, emotionally rich story with universal themes of friendship and loyalty, heroism and bravery. Two young women from totally different backgrounds are thrown together during World War II: one a working-class girl from Manchester, the other a Scottish aristocrat, one a pilot, the other a wireless operator. Yet whenever their paths cross, they complement each other perfectly and before long become devoted friends. But then a vital mission goes wrong, and one of the friends has to bail out of a faulty plane over France. She is captured by the Gestapo and becomes a prisoner of war. The story begins in Verity's own words, as she writes her account for her captors.

©2012 Elizabeth Gatland (P)2012 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd

This one will stay with me

Beautifully written, haunting and memorable. This story (or should I say these stories) will visit my thoughts many times before they fade away.

I'm not sure why, but it took me a couple of tries to get into the characters and setting of the story but once I did I was hooked and couldn't let go until I finished.

Please read the reviews that delve into the characters, history, and locations because once you do, I think you'll want to give Verity a listen. And, stick with it, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

INTERESTING IN HOW IT CAME TOGETHER

AT FIRST I HAD A HARD TIME DEFINING THE GIRLS...VOICES AND ACCENTS SOUNDED SO ALIKE TO ME. IT WAS WOVEN FROM A DIFFERENT VIEWPOINT. THOSE WHO ARE CAPTURED, TWO BEST FRIENDS AND THE LIVES THEY WERE TRYING TO LIVE. FINALLY, IT ALL CAME TOGETHER & I COULD SEE WHAT AND WHY THE AUTHOR WANTED THEM NOT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPEN TO EACH OTHER .

beautifully performed

I am not a young adult I'm an old one but still I enjoyed every minute of this story and found it very touching

Worth reading

Some of the torture scenes and executions are hard to endure. However, it is a believable portrayal of evil. The characters are fully developed and human. The contrast between good and evil is profound. Comfort is given in spite of necessary sacrifice. May we learn to live one another as these characters did.

Stellar Listen

Would you listen to Code Name Verity again? Why?

Yes so much yes. That is hard to say without giving things away but I would like to hear what I missed.

If you could take any character from Code Name Verity out to dinner, who would it be and why?

Only picking one character is difficult!! But I would love to go for dinner with Julie for reasons better left unsaid for fear of spoilers. I will just leave it as she's an incredibly strong female with opinions and attitude galore.

Any additional comments?

That narration is amazing. I would listen to anything either of them read.

Unbelievably Good

There simply aren’t words enough to describe how good, how riveting, how heartbreaking, how exhilarating, how compelling I found this story. And not just the story, which is beyond remarkable on its own, but the performances for this audiobook, which build and reinforce the characters and the action, and reveal their inner states with such nuance of tone, breathing and pace. I’m well aware that we all bring to our experiences our own history and inner world, and what deeply resonates with me may baffle another. Such is the nature of our own travel through time. And indeed, this too is at the very heart of this story; how each of us live such different lives, though we may walk side by side. Read this book. Listen to it. If nothing else, it will give you a sense of real days for real people in a world at war….and why we must be much more careful than we currently are being to make sure those who are stoking these same fires again are shut down and shut out. Listen, lest we forget.

Would make an amazing movie!

The idea of the story is great! The rating can be confusing. There are a lot of peoples names to keep up with and the author switches back from the first and third person quite often. Your left at the end of the book trying to make a ton of connections information that was given to you by the beginning of the book that you don’t realize or clues. If ever made into a movie I’m sure he’d be very exciting to watch.

AMAZING!!!!

This book is a must read! It is heartfelt, intriguing and overall amazing! I highly reccomend this book!!!!

Not a satisfactory storyline or resolution

This seems very intense and grim to be a YA book, but in a postscript the author says it was written at the request of and with the help of a children’s book publisher. The vocabulary used also seems more advanced.

The first half, written from one woman’s perspective, has the makings of a good war story but proceeds to become depressingly grim. The second half, from the other woman’s perspective, is intense and at the same time more boring. And the final resolution is not satisfying.

The author is clever about revealing bits and pieces of important information, sometimes in the context of flashbacks, and that technique was effective in maintaining interest. It lost a little of its effectiveness in the audio version, however, where it was sometimes hard to tell when the narrative had switched to a flashback.

Overall I wouldn’t recommend this book. I enjoy good novels about WWII but this one is progressively both depressing and boring.

Beautiful story

A very well suited novel for an audiobook. The story is one of friendship and the horrors of war. Inspiring read.