I'm in love—

—with a new book.

I could not put this book down, starting it on Wednesday, pouring through it all day yesterday. I generally have a strict rule that between the hours of four and eight, I am nothing but a mom. I'm not a writer, I'm not a reader, I'm not anything but someone who makes food (hmm...), gives kids attention, reads to them (for them, not for me), helps with homework, plays games—someone who is completely focused on five little people. I normally don't do any reading at all until after nine at night.

But I did a lot of hiding in the bathroom yesterday. Then I hid in Calvin's room. Then I hid in Lucy's.

I could not put this book down.

Granted, I couldn't put Ruta Sepetys's first book, Between Shades of Gray, down, but this book was maybe, maybe, even better. Okay, it was better. Maybe even way better.

Out of the Easy is in some ways a rougher book than Between Shades of Gray. They are both historical fiction, the first about Lithuania in the first half of the 20th century, and Out of the Easy about post World War II New Orleans. The Big Easy. New Orleans at its roughest and dirtiest.

Josie's mother is a prostitute. Josie spends lots of time in brothels with murderers, madams, prostitutes, the mafia. Some parts of this book, the subject matter itself, might make people uncomfortable, and I would not recommend handing it off to your 14-18 year old until you've read it yourself, but Ruta Sepetys has a gift. She has many gifts, of course, including writing riveting stories full of depth and the best characters, but she also has a gift for taking the sensational and making it real. This is not a book meant to titillate or be scandalous. She handles even the prostitution delicately—you see its ugliness without having to really see anything.

I had to know what happened to Josie. I had to find out her future. I had to find out what happened to her friends. I had to know which boy she ends up with. I had to know.

The book already has two starred reviews (from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly), I'm pleased to say, but this was a five-star book for me. Pick it up when you have time to get lost in a world completely different from anything you've experienced before (hopefully!). Pick it up and rejoice that authors like Ruta Sepetys exist and they are young enough to write more!

Transportation

I don't like the term Historical Fiction.

I majored in History for my undergraduate degree. And though I really do love history, love it, I have a tendency to cringe away from books termed: "Historical Fiction."

It's a term that immediately sounds dry to me. Like a lesson waiting to happen. It also sounds suspicious, because what will I be reading? Something real? Something not so real? How good was the author's research? And on and on the questions go.

But this book—

Between Shades of Gray

(which has the unfortunate distinction of sounding very much like another series of books...)

—changed that for me. Ruta Sepetys creates a vivid world for me, a world I believe in. That doesn't mean I believe Lithuania—or Siberian Prisoner of War Camps—looked just like this in the early 1900s, but I don't think Sepetys, who did extensive, careful research, wants me to think that either.

It doesn't really matter as long as I know this book is fiction. She's dug into the past to create a world, and it is an outstanding world, a world that makes my heart ache and hope—and please, please, read this book. Sam is reading this book and he is loving it. He's out of town right now at a work conference with his brothers and cousins. It's his chance to watch sports on TV (we don't do that here) and ESPN's Sports Center (we really don't do that here), and he told me the other night that rather than watch those things, he really just wanted to be in the quiet of his room reading Between Shades of Gray. 

You have to know Sam to know just how remarkable that is.

It's this book (as well as Sam's growing enjoyment of reading). You read even a few chapters and leave the pages a changed person, a grateful person, a more awake person to the world around you. You feel more passionately about what's important in life. You see truth—the truth about the resilience of mankind, the innate goodness of many, and the tyranny of the few, and for a moment, that truth shuts out all the voices that are telling you you're too fat, you're not rich enough, your home needs some new furniture, you aren't talented enough to do that thing, everyone around you is so much better at everything.

If by chance you've already read Between Shades of Gray, here are a few more books that do this for me. You have to tell yourself that these books are not Historical Fiction (unless you are head-over-heels for that term). You have to tell yourself that these books are fantasy, because that's what all fiction is. Fantasy. But some fantasy is richer and more meaningful than others.

The Fire Horse Girl by Kay Honeyman


The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen (not really historical fiction, but I'm including it)

The Berlin Boxing Club by Robert Sharenow


Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein


To Destroy You is no Loss: the odyssey of a Cambodian family by JoAn Criddle


If you have any suggestions, I would love to hear them. I'm in the mood right now for fantastical historical fiction! (All of these books I would say are okay for kids twelve and up, but read them first and make your own decision for what you'll recommend for your kids!)