Code Name Verity - Elizabeth Wein
When I was training to be a teacher, this book was recommended by a particular vlog post we were directed to during one lesson. I hunted out a copy, read it, loved it, and started recommending it to others.
That was before I started my book list, so was at least nine years ago. Having finally picked it back up, I think I spent about the right amount of time between reads, because although I could remember some of the main beats, I was able to discover the specifics afresh and once again enjoy the process of discovery.
The premise of Code Name Verity is quite sad: our Scottish (don't call her English!) protagonist (whom we eventually learn is named Julie), has been captured in Nazi-occupied France during World War 2, and is now being tortured and interrogated as a spy. In order to avoid further torture, as well as hopefully delay her execution, Julie has begun revealing secrets from her time with the Allies, starting with eleven sets of radio code. The first section of the book is this written confession, with Julie outlining the story of both her time as a spy and the training of her friend Maddie, who ends up becoming the pilot who flew Julie to France.
Julie is grieving the loss of her friend (whom we learn has died in a plane crash), struggling to survive the ongoing torture, hating herself for her cowardness in revealing her past, and trying to figure out any possible escape even as she writes everything down for her Nazi captors.
And, then, at a certain point, the book shifts perspective.
To give too much away would be a spoiler, but the second section of the book, while still quite sad, recontextualises what we have read in the first section dramatically. Everything Julie has gone through is real - this isn't the sort of book to shy away from the horrors of war - but the things she has chosen to emphasise or downplay are significant and important, and put a completely different spin on the Julie we thought we were reading about.
This is made most apparent in one scene that plays out twice: Julie being forced to meet with a Nazi-collaborating reporter. In the interview (that in my version begins on page 129), the only hint that something else is going on is when the word "verity" is mentioned, and Julie reacts to it. Despite the book's title (and the first section of the book being called "Verity"), this is the first time that the word "verity" appears in the main text, and it's context is never elaborated on.
However, the second section of the book revisits this interview from another perspective (beginning on page 258), and this helps the reader to understand more fully what was going on in plain sight in the first half. Without giving any more away, the use of "unreliable narration" in this book is very well done, and quite important to the plot.
Particularly for this reason, I really enjoy Code Name Verity. It would be an interesting book to pull apart with a senior high-school class, analysing what is and isn't said in any given moment.
It is sad, it is clever, and it sticks with you.
And all of that is still true after a second read.
Completed 22 November 2025.
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