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wordsofclover 's review for:
The Enigma Game
by Elizabeth Wein
4.5 stars
I hand Elizabeth Wein my heart on a platter every time I begin one of her stories, and she smashes it to a pulp each time with characters and stories full of love and feeling and the immeasurable sense of loss and destruction that WW2 brought with it.
In 1940, 15-year-old Louisa is reeling after the sudden loss of her mother and her father in separate bombing incidents. Now, Louisa sets off to Scotland where she has been hired to care for an elderly German woman. When she arrives, Louisa immediately becomes a member of a secret operation that involves a German soldier spy and an Enigma machine that can crack German code. Enter Jamie Beaufort-Stuart (Yes, OUR JAMIE from Code Name Verity) who uses the cracked code to keep himself and his squadron one step ahead of the German fighter planes eager to take them down.
I loved this book which isn't really a surprise as I love Elizabeth's writing, and how she incorporates amazing WW2 stories that have a lot of research and fact to back them up and connects them to younger characters doing their best to save their country. There is an earnestness and a youth to Louisa that I loved, and which was missing slightly in the other two books in this series (minus The Pearl Thief as that is a prequel set well before the war) as the characters we meet (Julie, Maddie and Rose) are all well-versed and involved in the war effort. In this book, we really feel Louisa's urge to help out in some way and the frustration that her age is stopping her (and her belief that her Jamaican birth and her skin colour may stop her from doing so).
There is a wonderful relationship here too between Louisa and Jane - the older woman she is hired to care for. There's a fragility to the relationship due to Jane's mental health, as well as her aging body - not to mention her fear that any moment she will be taken away just for being German despite living in England most of her life.
Ellen from The Pearl Thief is also a character in this book and we see her struggle with her own secret that she is a traveller and her fear that people will treat her differently when they know. Her secret bonds her to Louisa and Jane as they all feel like outsiders. I would love another book in this series that follows Ellen after the events of this book as she is a terrific character, and she deserves a whole novel just for her (with cameos from her brother, and hopefully Jamie as well).
The plot with the Enigma machine was really interesting, and I loved the intense moments when the German soldier was in the room but I have to say that my brain was not made for code or anything of that nature so while some readers may love the way Louisa and Jane were able to work with the Enigma machine, it probably went over my head a bit and I loved the characters themselves and the relationships in this book.
I should mention that Julie from Code Name Verity also makes a lovely cameo appearance in this book too!
This book was written after Code Name Verity but takes place BEFORE it. However, I would actually think reading in publishing order is still the way to go with this series. The Enigma Game fleshes out Jamie's backstory and brings to life snippets that he shared in Code Name Verity. But there's something lovely about reading The Enigma Game last and getting those thrills when your favourite characters show up or are mentioned.
I also loved the author's note in this book that explains the research Elizabeth Wein undertook for this book, as well some interesting historical facts about German defectors, code breaking machines and the Blenheim squadron. I thought it brilliant how she talked about coming up with this story that slotted in with the canon she had already written about Jamie in Code Name Verity and why she also thought it important to include West Indies characters' like Louisa in the war-story as it is a population who committed themselves to the war effort yet rarely get any kind of glory.
I can't recommend this enough for fans of Code Name Verity or people looking for amazing WW2 stories that center around younger characters with heart and spirit.
I hand Elizabeth Wein my heart on a platter every time I begin one of her stories, and she smashes it to a pulp each time with characters and stories full of love and feeling and the immeasurable sense of loss and destruction that WW2 brought with it.
In 1940, 15-year-old Louisa is reeling after the sudden loss of her mother and her father in separate bombing incidents. Now, Louisa sets off to Scotland where she has been hired to care for an elderly German woman. When she arrives, Louisa immediately becomes a member of a secret operation that involves a German soldier spy and an Enigma machine that can crack German code. Enter Jamie Beaufort-Stuart (Yes, OUR JAMIE from Code Name Verity) who uses the cracked code to keep himself and his squadron one step ahead of the German fighter planes eager to take them down.
I loved this book which isn't really a surprise as I love Elizabeth's writing, and how she incorporates amazing WW2 stories that have a lot of research and fact to back them up and connects them to younger characters doing their best to save their country. There is an earnestness and a youth to Louisa that I loved, and which was missing slightly in the other two books in this series (minus The Pearl Thief as that is a prequel set well before the war) as the characters we meet (Julie, Maddie and Rose) are all well-versed and involved in the war effort. In this book, we really feel Louisa's urge to help out in some way and the frustration that her age is stopping her (and her belief that her Jamaican birth and her skin colour may stop her from doing so).
There is a wonderful relationship here too between Louisa and Jane - the older woman she is hired to care for. There's a fragility to the relationship due to Jane's mental health, as well as her aging body - not to mention her fear that any moment she will be taken away just for being German despite living in England most of her life.
Ellen from The Pearl Thief is also a character in this book and we see her struggle with her own secret that she is a traveller and her fear that people will treat her differently when they know. Her secret bonds her to Louisa and Jane as they all feel like outsiders. I would love another book in this series that follows Ellen after the events of this book as she is a terrific character, and she deserves a whole novel just for her (with cameos from her brother, and hopefully Jamie as well).
The plot with the Enigma machine was really interesting, and I loved the intense moments when the German soldier was in the room but I have to say that my brain was not made for code or anything of that nature so while some readers may love the way Louisa and Jane were able to work with the Enigma machine, it probably went over my head a bit and I loved the characters themselves and the relationships in this book.
I should mention that Julie from Code Name Verity also makes a lovely cameo appearance in this book too!
This book was written after Code Name Verity but takes place BEFORE it. However, I would actually think reading in publishing order is still the way to go with this series. The Enigma Game fleshes out Jamie's backstory and brings to life snippets that he shared in Code Name Verity. But there's something lovely about reading The Enigma Game last and getting those thrills when your favourite characters show up or are mentioned.
I also loved the author's note in this book that explains the research Elizabeth Wein undertook for this book, as well some interesting historical facts about German defectors, code breaking machines and the Blenheim squadron. I thought it brilliant how she talked about coming up with this story that slotted in with the canon she had already written about Jamie in Code Name Verity and why she also thought it important to include West Indies characters' like Louisa in the war-story as it is a population who committed themselves to the war effort yet rarely get any kind of glory.
I can't recommend this enough for fans of Code Name Verity or people looking for amazing WW2 stories that center around younger characters with heart and spirit.