Historical fiction; This was excellent; highly recommended ( )

3.5*

While this historical fiction of the end of WW2 & the Ravensbruck concentration camp was well done, I never came to really believe in the main character, Rose Justice, a young American pilot & didn't care for her poetry. I also felt that the structure of the book robbed it of some of the suspense as we hear about Rose's experiences at Ravensbruck in retrospect so we know in advance that she survived.

Sasha Pick did a fine narration, though I found her voice for Różyczka grating. ( )

young adult 14+

I do think this book was amazing. While it was a little slow to start, there was a purpose to it. Rose was a little naive and upbeat and cheerful, but there was a purpose to that, as well.

The author's descriptions and characters put me right in Ravensbruck with Rose, the Rabbits, and the other women featured in Rose Under Fire. I think this one will stay with me for awhile.

If you've read [b:Code Name Verity|11925514|Code Name Verity|Elizabeth Wein|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1337034341s/11925514.jpg|16885788] and enjoyed it, you must read this. If you haven't read CNV, you should and then read Rose Under Fire.

Thank you, Elizabeth Wein, for helping to tell the world. ( )

I am so very torn on what to rate this one. Part One and Part Three are solid 5's, or at least 4.5's. But Part Two has such a glaring formatting problem that it kept distracting me from being able to be immersed in the book at all. Which was sad to see, since Wein did glorious things with formatting in her first book, and even did 75% of glorious formatting in this one. The formatting just slipped way too hard for the convenience of ramming the main story out too fast in the middle, without it's outter box context and situational placement.

I deeply appreciate the topic of her novels, but I'm not move to deep sensationalism of my points to that because I've read a lot of books on these topics all through my life. I even just finished read/re-reading Maus only a month ago. And I had another piece related to it right before I picked up these books, too. They were very well done for the "I" point of view of one young girl, even when I felt certain parts of it were more convient and neater than history shows it might have been.

There were several moments I got misty eyed, but the only place that I lost my one tear to the book was the first time a certain character cried in Part Three. I love the poetry throughout it. I love the raw emotion. I love the continued listing of the named throughout each section until you have every single girl's name who was etched inside of their minds and hearts left with you when you walked away from the book. Also, the afterward was a great addition to it. Saying what was real and what wasn't, and whose names were the absolute to history ones. ( )