Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein

Oct. 11th, 1943—A British spy plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France. Its pilot and passenger are best friends. One of the girls has a chance at survival. The other has lost the game before it's barely begun.

When "Verity" is arrested by the Gestapo, she's sure she doesn't stand a chance. As a secret agent captured in enemy territory, she's living a spy's worst nightmare. Her Nazi interrogators give her a simple choice: reveal her mission or face a grisly execution.

As she intricately weaves her confession, Verity uncovers her past, how she became friends with the pilot Maddie, and why she left Maddie in the wrecked fuselage of their plane. On each new scrap of paper, Verity battles for her life, confronting her views on courage and failure and her desperate hope to make it home. But will trading her secrets be enough to save her from the enemy?

Harrowing and beautifully written, Elizabeth Wein creates a visceral read of danger, resolve, and survival that shows just how far true friends will go to save each other.
Code Name Verity is an outstanding novel that will stick with you long after the last page.

Why I Picked It Up

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I can't remember why I first picked up Code Name Verity as a teenager, but I can remember picking it up just about every time after. It's brilliant, harrowing, voicey, emotional—textured and ambitious in a practically irreplicable way that marks it as one of the greats.

I'm not a huge fan of historical fiction, likely for the same reasons I don't enjoy museums—funny, as a history major. Sometimes, historical fiction feels to me like an uncomfortable mix of preaching about a time period á la nonfiction while attempting to scratch the same narrative itch as fiction, if that makes sense. But when done well—like in this one and in Jennifer Donnelly's Revolution, they knock it out of the park for me like nothing else. I'm just much less likely to pick them up in the first place.

The first time I tried reading this one, I quickly put it down—which was a grave mistake. Like some other favorites of mine (namely Jellicoe Road), it takes some friction to push through at the beginning, which is mostly pastoral, droning on about airplane types and riding bikes in the Scottish countryside. It's almost abruptly technical and feels strange—almost like the whale passages in Moby Dick, which I actually do enjoy.

One day, I picked up Code Name Verity for the second time by complete accident, and I'm so grateful I did—because the story is one of the best and most distinctive voices I've ever had the pleasure and privilege of reading.

About the Book

In the modern YA landscape, it's difficult to imagine this one getting past our shortened attention spans needing inciting incidents by chapter three—but Code Name Verity is absolutely worth the initial friction.

The beginning is pre-WWII, with vague stirrings of unrest, and then soon tumbles into the narrative that shapes the main plot; we quickly find out that the stilted narration is dictated by Maddie (one character's) captured pilot friend, who's being held prisoner and tortured by the Gestapo. Code Name Verity is her traitor's log, her reluctant copying down of war secrets in exchange for her own life.

Our narrator is building the scene and history slowly, partly to buy time. (The meta pleasures of this book are unreal—ex: sentences trailing off, frequent tangents of self-loathing for forking over Allied secrets, etc.) She's operating a dangerous game—needing to stretch out the narrative just long enough to avoid her imminent death and further torture, but not wanting to break the Nazis' patience.

The narrative oscillates between her understanding of her best friend's start as a pilot and how Allied training programs, etc. were structured behind the scenes and her brutal experiences in prison.

Voice & Tone

There's not too much more I can say here without spoiling the book entirely, but Code Name Verity will shock and surprise you. It's fascinating, and also has plenty of warmth and texture.

“People are complicated. There is so much more to everybody than you realize. You see someone in school everyday, or at work, in the canteen, and you share a cigarette of a coffee with them, and you talk about the weather or last night's air raid. But you don't talk so much about what was the nastiest thing you ever said to your mother, or how you pretended to be David Balfour, the hero of Kidnapped, for the whole of the year when you were 13, or what you imagine yourself doing with the pilot who looks like Leslie Howard if you were alone in his bunk after a dance.”

It feels taboo for the narrator to be as funny as she is. The book is brilliant and fiery and genius, and also gut-wrenchingly sad when it needs to be. Elizabeth Wein breaks a lot of rules in formatting and structure, and those both flesh out the realism of the story—a live wire, one of those narratives that nothing else can even touch, no matter whether you think it was enjoyable or successful even—and make the reading experience a roller coaster. The term visceral in the synopsis is absolutely correct. The main character is tough but wimpy when the situation calls for it, making her ultimate arc feel realistic.

On that note, the writing style is also rather informal and conversational, which may make it more accessible to high school readers. I don't normally enjoy reading all-caps and similar, but it works here.

“I am no longer afraid of getting old. Indeed I can't believe I ever said anything so stupid. So childish. So offensive and arrogant. But mainly, so very, very stupid. I desperately want to grow old.”

If you can make it through the process of being perhaps-bored at the beginning by the descriptions of aircraft, the emotional hooks and the voice will reward you. It can occasionally be difficult to follow who is who, or what the chronology is, but the dizzying experience of finding clarity in some ways mimics the hardships our narrator undergoes. (Meaning: you have to buy in a bit to those being intentional and realistic rather than feeling messy.)

There are sections of this book I wish I could read for the first time again. It's also a beautiful ode to a friendship.

Overall Thoughts

“Von Loewe really should know me well enough by now to realize that I am not going to face my execution without a fight. Or with anything remotely resembling dignity.”

Code Name Verity is a formative book for me, and will not be for everyone. I rarely wade into historical fiction, but this one knocks it out of the park—feeling larger-than-life and risky and even a little strange at times. The puzzles and twists are beyond satisfying, and never fail to give me chills or make me cry. I still get a lump in my throat to think about this book. I'm often seeking books that feel utterly like themselves, like singular entities, and Code Name Verity deserves that designation on my shelves.

It's ambitious even in its flaws, and for me that makes it perfect. I have forced plenty of people to read it, and I'm not done. (If my AP American History teacher ever sees this—hi Mr. Messano! I miss your class!) It's also excellent on audio—a format I've revisited several times.

Kiss me, Hardy! Kiss me quick!

For fans of:

Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly; Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta; Midnight at the Electric by Jodi Lynn Anderson; A History of Glitter and Blood by Hannah Moskowitz; WWII novels, of course; East of Eden by John Steinbeck.