Sepetys captures the hearts of readers with her hauntingly beautiful prose and themes of the importance of identity, the power of art, and the strength of the human spirit.
Between Shades of Gray is a captivating and empowering story that follows a young teenager who, despite facing despair and never-ending struggles, never loses her hope or courage.
This book is based on actual events that occurred during WWII from the perspective of a fictional character. Fifteen-year-old Lina Vilkas is torn from the life she’s always known when she and her family are arrested and deported from their home country of Lithuania. Her father is separated from the rest of the family while Lina, her mother, and her younger brother, Jonas, are forced to travel in an overstuffed cattle car for over two thousand miles to Siberia. The grueling, violent journey comes to an end only when they reach a labor camp, where the deportees are forced to work under horrendous conditions. Lina narrates, “I scanned the group. Faces spoke to their future. I saw courage, anger, fear, and confusion. Others were hopeless. They had already given up.”
Lina shows her incredible strength of character as she fights to withstand torment, ridicule, and abuse while living every day in fear. She spends years working backbreaking jobs, wondering if she will ever have a normal life again; wondering if she will ever see her father again and whether she can survive every new heartbreak. Her desire to survive and tell her story through her drawings and writings drives her to endure it all.
Between Shades of Gray is beautifully written and emotionally gripping; Ruta Sepetys uses fictional characters to give a voice to the people who have something to say; she gleans information about true stories and events from interviewing real people who lived these experiences. While bringing their stories to life, she captures the hearts of readers with her hauntingly beautiful prose and themes of the importance of identity, the power of art, and the strength of the human spirit.
