June 14, 1941. Fifteen-year-old Lina Vilkas is sitting in her bedroom in Lithuania, ready to compose a letter to her cousin Joana, when a violent pounding on the door startles her. With that noise, her life is upended, as officers of the Soviet secret police, the NKVD, barrel into her family’s house and take Lina, her mother Elena, and her brother Jonas prisoner. Separated from her father, a university provost, Lina and her family are forced onto a caravan of train cars, then sent on a perilous journey across Lithuania and Russia, all the way to Siberia and the Arctic Circle. While enduring starvation, abuse, and excruciatingly difficult labor picking beets in a work camp, Lina nevertheless manages to endure these hardships through the few things she has left–her family; her desperate belief that her father, sent to a Soviet prison, is still alive; the kind boy, Andrius, that she meets along the way, and her love for art. As Lina witnesses the horrific treatment of her fellow prisoners, fears for her younger brother’s heath, and desperately wishes for the life she has left behind, she continues to draw the atrocities that are happening around her and the people she has met along the way. This art both sustains her, serving as a record of her experiences, and gives her hope: as she passes her drawings through other prisoners’ hands and through the mail, she retains the hope that her father will somehow find them, and realize that they are still alive.

I am ashamed to say that before Between Shades of Gray, I had not realized what happened to the residents of Lithuania and other Baltic region countries in the 1940s, where the ‘educated’ and ‘professional’ citizens were listed as anti-Soviet, and were rounded up to be sent as slaves to Siberia. Wrested away from their homes, which were seized as Soviet possessions, these citizens were treated as criminals, separated from their families, and sentenced to hard labor, little food, and utter cruelty.

Sepetys based Between Shades of Gray on her own family’s history, which lends an extra sense of gravity to the plot unfolding in its pages. While Lina does get to stay with her mother and younger brother as they journey the 6,500 miles from Lithuania to Siberia (a map depicting their journey is included at the beginning of the novel), this is only because of her mother’s sacrifice, who bribes a guard with a precious family heirloom to prevent him from taking Lina’s brother Jonas away. As Lina states simply, “Have you ever wondered what a human life is worth? That morning, my brother’s was worth a pocket watch.” Sepetys depicts the familial bond so strongly in this novel, as the reader can feel the devotion that Lina’s mother has for her children, and the desperation that Lina has to keep both her mother’s and Jonas’ spirits alive.

The other supporting characters, who the Vilkas family meet when they are first herded into a stuffy, cramped, and unsanitary train car, also become their surrogate family. The bald man, who injured his leg trying to escape, and whose complaints become a cantankerous soundtrack to their journey, is nevertheless treated with never-ending compassion by Lina’s mother. Ona, who was dragged from the hospital minutes after giving birth, struggles to breastfeed her newborn child. And Andrius Arvydas is a gentle, yet often infuriating, voice for her to talk to. The community this group forms, which tragically diminishes throughout their incarceration, is strong and inspiring.

While Lina does meet Andrius, a boy her age, there is no sweeping romance that overwhelms the utterly serious narrative. And this is as it should be. The history presented in this novel needs to stand on its own. Yes, it is humanized by Lina and her family, who give us a window into the lives that Stalin’s regime destroyed. But these characters and their humanity can, and should, be enough, should not be overshadowed by stolen kisses or angsty crushes.

Sepetys’ writing is spare and beautiful, full of simple descriptions that utterly fit the serious subject matter. Lina’s brief flashbacks to her life before the Soviet raid are well-placed, complementing the present-day narrative and giving the reader an emotional juxtaposition to the carefree, well-to-do life that the Vilkas family enjoyed prior. Well-researched and well-plotted, this book does not simply end, as there were no happy endings for these citizens, whose entire lives were transformed. As Sepetys noted in her Author’s Note, the prisoners who lived spent ten to fifteen years in Siberia, returning to a transformed Lithuania, where they were still treated as criminals, evildoers who were forced to keep their imprisonment and abuse a secret.

And a secret it was, to so many people. Between Shades of Gray brings a horrific period of history to the forefront, imbuing it with emotion, humanity, and hope. This book will not let us forget. As Lina noted with horror, “Two Soviets pulled a priest down the platform. His hands were bound and his cassock was dirty. Why a priest? But then…why any of us?”

Copy received from Pam at Iwriteinbooks.