Trust, food, and freedom are all commodities only given on short special occasions for Cristian Florescu. As a teenager living in Romania in 1989, Cristian has to navigate life while continuously avoiding informers and keep his negative opinions about Romania in his notebook. After the Soviet Union’s collapse, a man by the name of Ceausescu rose to power and took control of Romania and established a dictatorship under himself and his communist party. Ceausescu cleverly portrays Romania and himself positively to the rest of the world while the mast surveillance, censorship, and informers kept Romania under his control. One day, Cristian’s crimes were exposed to the Securitate, Romania’s secret police force. He is met with two options: betray everyone his loves, or secretly use his intellect to overthrow the corruption within Romania. Cristian continues to write in his secret notebook while tactically battling against the Securitate with his arsenal of information. However, it soon becomes clear that the Securitate wouldn’t be the toughest opponent Cristian has to face. Hatred can be often wielded as a powerful weapon against foes, but love made it difficult to raise swords against another. There is always conflict or an objective for Cristian to clear. Immediately, Cristian is forced to become an informer and relay information about an American diplomat to the Securitate. This made me question my point of view of the story and deduce what was the best decision for Cristian. I quickly began to realize that it was not his fault that he became an informer, and shifted my attention to the system. The Securitate’s method of blackmailing him was effective because they threaten his family and forces him to choose between that and an American friend. They were able to exploit his kindness and use him as a pawn under their control. Cristian’s best friend, Luca, is my favorite character within the story. Luca’s personality and his relationship with Cristian, combined with the way in which he was written, creates an immense amount of emotions to build up as I read the story. Sometimes I liked him, sometimes I questioned his actions, but he was always fun and thrilling to read. Ruta Sepetys presents enough information for us readers to infer what could happen in the story without making it obvious, her style of writing creates incredible suspense within the story and keeps the reader engaged. From reading this book, I realized that I absorb information quickly without questioning it. There were many foreshadowing carefully hinted throughout the story, but I missed most of them because I had only looked at the situation from Christian’s perspective without giving it proper thoughts. This changed how I view informers, I believed that they were people who sided with the Securitate to gain a higher social standing while ruining the lives of others for trivial reasons. However, it soon became clear that many informers were forced into it due to enormous blackmailing and threats that kept people from rejecting the party. This story made me feel more empathetic towards people living under harsh conditions without freedom. I was under the impression that when the Soviet Union collapsed, these Eastern European countries such as Romania became free of dictatorship rule, but reality was the very opposite. This book captures the unfortunate situation of Romania in 1989 while also showcasing the strange happiness Cristian was able to experience despite the horrible circumstances. I would recommend this to anyone who is interested in learning more about history from the perspective of others, but this story can be read, understood, and enjoyed by anyone. By Phuong D.
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AuthorSTenth grade students at Decorah High School share how they're reading outside of their own experiences and how it has changed them. Categories
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