Amy McAuley

I randomly picked up this book from the library after seeing the cover. The plot summary grabbed my attention (I had recently started watching the TV series 'Bomb Girls' and really enjoyed it) so I decided to take it.

I'm glad I did! I really enjoyed it and appreciated it. It's obvious that the author has done her research and the atmosphere she creates is amazing. So if you enjoy WWII young adult novels/settings then I recommend this.

The book started a little slow for me but it really picked up. I really respected Adele as a character. She is a strong female and a fighter.

My only disappointments were in the romances. They don't play too major a role in the story--which is fine because there is enough going on that they really aren't needed but for some reason after reading the summary I was expecting a little more I suppose.

I would definitely be interested in a sequel based on the premise and how it ended. Even if it wasn't with Adele but within the same environment with different characters I would be interested in reading it.

Check out more spoiler-free book and series reviews on my blog SERIESousBookReviews.com as well as read book series recaps!

… (más)

Two and a half stars. I liked it more than I thought I would; I was afraid the characters would be too obviously modern teens written into a WWII story, and for the most part that wasn't the case. There were some nice period details. But the plot felt thin and disjointed (more on that in a moment), predictable in places, lacking closure in others. The love triangle felt forced, shoehorned in to meet YA genre conventions; Adele conveniently forgets about Pierre when Robbie's around, and vice-versa, never experiencing any real conflict in her feelings. The whole train-blowing sequence was lifted directly from The Longest Day, down to the smallest detail. Not sure if it was intended as an homage, but the scene itself was random and pointless in the greater context of the story. I feel it would have made for a tighter storyline if the focus had remained solely on the sabotaging of the factory.… (más)

Originally reviewed on A Reader of Fictions.

Violins of Autumn mines the fertile literary ground of World War II, which has a seemingly limitless number of stories to be told. The plot of Violins of Autumn follows the work of a teenage female spy in the months leading up to D-Day. While I did enjoy this novel, the timing of my reading was bad. Unfortunately, Violins of Autumn came out on the heels of another novel about a young female spy for the Brits who is captured and tortured, Code Name Verity, and I could not help comparing the two, which weakened my experience of VoA.

This novel begins, as so many do these days, with a brief into a climactic scene from the end of the novel. This technique has become exceedingly popular in YA fiction and, while it can and has been used to great effect in some cases, I maintain that it should be used sparingly. The right scene put at the beginning can create dramatic irony, keeping the reader on tenterhooks throughout the book to figure out what's going on or how the main character ended up in that situation. If this technique does not succeed, it comes off simply as a lame attempt to create additional drama, often having the adverse affect.

The opening dramatic snippet of Violins of Autumn depicts Adele's torture by the Nazis. Adele (though her real name is Betty, I prefer her spy name for her and will refer to her that way), we now know will be captured at some point, and, based on the ending of that concluding section, possibly die. Wow, really, prologue? You mean a spy might be tortured or even die? Can this be true? This felt like such an unnecessary ploy, as I already expect that sort of stuff to happen in a novel about a spy and I felt less interested knowing what was coming than if I had been waiting to find out. Plus, Code Name Verity also opens with torture, and that made comparing the two even more inevitable.

Where Violins of Autumn wins over Code Name Verity is readibility. The story is much less complicated, the characters simpler and it also doesn't make you want to weep for the rest of your life. For the reader that loved the idea of a teenage spy but could not get through Code Name Verity (and seriously no judgment for that since I nearly DNFed it too), Violins of Autumn is the book that you're looking for.

McAulay keeps the plot moving along at a steady pace. Missions and danger and Nazis abound. All of the action kept me turning the pages. While I didn't particularly connect with the characters, nor did I dislike them. Adele is capable and skilled with language, so that was awesome. She avoided making stupid mistake and proved herself much cleverer than a lot of the other spies we see in the book, though she does struggle to do so well. However, I did not care for the love triangle, which resolved in an annoying way. Adele is one of those 'I love them both in different ways' girls, which I just cannot stand. With constant possibility of death, I am all for enjoying oneself, but attraction and fear do not love make.

The ending of Violins of Autumn struck me as the weakest part of the book. I thought it too optimistic. In the chapters before the last two, some sad things happened: people died, torture, etc. Yet, in those last two concluding chapters the tone is one of unmitigated celebration. There is not one mention of the fallen comrades, and, while I don't think they should wallow, THIS JUST HAPPENED. I expected something a bit darker and more contemplative.

Looking back on my review, I see how most of my comments are negative. I want to stress that this isn't a bad book; I did enjoy it. The timing was just off. Had there been a year or two gone since I read Code Name Verity, which covers the same basic concept, I would have appreciated this much more. So, if you've read CNV, give yourself some time.… (más)