Wish more people knew about this heartbreaking but uplifting book. Yea, that's an oxymoron of a sentence, but it's true. I loved Lina's character. I LOVED Andrius. And I kept waiting for something to happen - for someone to save the day. For them to go home. But this book is shockingly realistic. Sometimes there aren't happy endings for everyone. I loved the imagery in this book especially. It was haunting how well I could picture all of the settings. I wish I had been made to understand the NKVD a little bit more during the book, as well as more about Stalin and why this was happening to Lina and her family, but I understand that it was absolutely from her POV - we know what she knows.

Spoilers now:

The ending killed me for sure. I so wanted Lina's mother to live. Or at last if she died I wanted a beautiful scene on the beach where Lina and Jonas see their father and they run to meet each other in slow motion. I kept waiting for Jonas to die, so that surprised me. And I was confused about the focus on Lina's art. All of the descriptions I'd read about Between Shades of Gray said it's about a Lithuanian girl who sends messages to her father through her drawings. Well she sent one at the beginning and more much later, but we never heard about them again! So they weren't even that important in my opinion! Did her father ever get them? Did they get passed around and give hope and inspiration to others? Did they get dropped on the ground somewhere or taken by the NKVD? Wish there was some elaboration there. Finally, the bald man was one of my favorite characters. I hated him - and rightfully so. And by the end I understood him and his realizations made me heartbroken for all of the people Lina encountered.

I highly recommend this book. I had no idea this treatment happened in countries outside of Germany, Poland, etc. And the fact that people weren't even allowed to discuss it until well into the later 1900s is terrifying. Read it. Learn.