Between Shades of Gray By Ruta Sepetya - Review

Here's Marilyn's glowing review of Between Shades of Gray. Doesn't it look good?

June 14, 1941: a lovely summer evening in Lithuania. In many homes like Lina's, families go about their perfectly normal activities until thunderous yelling shatters their lives forever. Soldiers inform them they are now enemies of Stalin's Russian state. The dreaded NKVD storm through their apartment, ordering them to pack their possessions. How do you decide what to pack in twenty minutes? How do you begin to think? And where is Lina’s father?

Lina’s family joins many others on an overcrowded cattle train rolling northwards. It's now obvious to Lina that the recent whispered meetings in their home were dangerous, and why her mother sewed family valuables into her winter coat. Their only chance of survival will be through cunning, bravery, and pride. Moving from rail stations to work camps and north toward the Siberian Arctic, the cattle car families must continually find ways to survive. Together, they build a steely resolve to never bow to the tyranny of Stalin's Russia. This novel is based on real people exiled from the Baltic states. Unlike Lina and the remaining lucky few from her boxcar, many never survived.