SPOILER ALERT
I'll try to group my criticisms into categories. And I would like to note that the purpose of this post is not to do an evenhanded review. The virtues (or supposed virtues) of this book have been sung by everyone from here to Timbuktu. I am writing to present a different view.
Narrative
The narrative immediately irritated me as I started. A first person experience told in third person? It makes no sense, and it distances the reader from key parts of the story which set the stage for Maddie and Julie's friendship. Every time I came across an instance where in third person, Julie describes with an omniscient perspective what Maddie is thinking or feeling, I thought, "How does she know that?!" Times when Julie is described then sound vain and awkward once you realize she's talking about herself: "The girl was immaculate....Queenie, people called her,...She was pretty, polite, and light on her feet, and if there was a Squadron dance on a Saturday night, she was the one the pilots went for."
Then I found myself wondering, why is she sharing all this unnecessary information with the people torturing her?!! She's revealing her vulnerabilities, her personality, what she holds most dear. I kept thinking, it doesn't make sense! It's not believable! I spent so much time wondering what the heck was going on with the narrative, that it totally took me out of the story. As "Part 2: Kittyhawk" gets going, so much of it makes so much more sense. But the third person narrative still makes no sense at all, and though we find that some things are lies meant to mislead interrogators, much of it is honest and truthful. Revealing her feelings about Maddie and Jaime could be a calculated move to ensure that her narrative sounds true, or it could be a huge mistake that could be used against her.
One more note on the narrative, which is part narrative, part pacing and action. I found the first half to be slow. I'm not totally sure why. I'm sure all the issues mentioned above contributed, but also there was all the technical pilot/mechanical descriptions. My eyes glazed over. The information went over my head. I got bored. It took work to get through that first half.
Plausibility
I found it implausible that Julie would write this narrative--that the gestapo would allow her to waste precious materials and time on not only Maddie's childhood and her friendship with Maddie, but also about her miserable experience as a tortured prisoner. I also find it completely implausible that no one caught on to anything she was doing. She has underlined sentences which--surprise surprise--turn out to be a secret message when put together. How are we supposed to believe that her professional interrogators are not going to pick up on this when it seems as plain as the nose on your face? And all those issues I had about the narrative--how could she reveal this and that? It struck me as odd, and often her narrative felt contrived. I would think that an interrogator would notice that as well. I've heard the argument that the references to Von Linden's interest in literature, etc could be construed as interest in Julie's less traditional approach to confession, but I find that to be a stretch of the imagination, too.
Then there's the single shot that successfully kills Julie instantly with no pain. It's a shot taken by someone who's been using a gun for a couple of weeks, who has to aim from under a bridge, through bushes, in the dark. It's a magic Hollywood moment. It had its desired effect on me. I had that moment that I think Wein was going for, but in revisiting that moment afterwards, this would be virtually impossible in real life.
And then there's how this mercy killing is treated. Everyone Maddie encounters that knows what she's done seems to agree that "Maddie did the right thing." She faces no consequences, no opposition, not a single differing viewpoint. This also seems quite unbelievable, especially when you consider that in the 40s, generally people were more religious and more conservative, and this would have been far less acceptable then than now. It is pointed out to us that Maddie is a Jew, and yet the morality that she might have been taught by her family doesn't come into play anywhere. Maddie makes this huge decision with all sorts of moral, personal, and ethical implications, consequences and complexities, but they aren't explored. Instead we get the simplistic and preachy "Maddie did the right thing." Seriously?? It's not that simple. The result was that it felt a bit like an issue book.
Development of the friendship
One of the odd things about this story is that I didn't connect with the friendship between Julie and Maddie. It's very central to the story. I've tried to figure out why I didn't become emotionally invested. I have a few ideas. One is Julie’s weird 3rd person narrative. As I mentioned, it felt contrived, and it was distracting. But it also created distance. As Julie describes her current experiences in first person, and as Maddie narrates in first person, it feels very immediate, real, and personal. The artificial third person narrative is lacking those things. I like third person, but the way it's used here acted as a barrier between the me and Julie and Maddie's friendship. A second idea of why it didn't work is that I wasn't shown enough of their friendship developing to feel their connection. I felt like I never understood how these girls became so connected. I remember being told that Julie was discovering her best friend, but I don’t know that I was actually shown enough to really feel it. And there were an awful lot of descriptions of flying and machinery during that part, too...
It's All About the Author
All these contrivances yell one thing to the reader: "Look at me, the writer! I just blew your mind didn't I?" This book is more about the author than any other subject or story or character. Whether it was the ballpoint pen, the flashbacks in third person, the underlining, the literary confessions, the reveal of the twist, just about everything (whether it was done well or not) points to the author instead of the story.
Moral Issues
This was the clincher for me. Page 285 guaranteed that I would not like this book. I don't like mercy killing stories. I just cannot get behind a story that condones/applauds/glorifies mercy killing. This is my bias. I had similar problems with Million Dollar Baby--as wonderfully crafted as it was, I found the ending and "moral of the story" offensive. I can't help but think of Unbroken and Never Fall Down, two true stories of men surviving torture and unthinkable atrocities who manage to survive and find hope and happiness despite all odds. In contrast, you have Code Name Verity where extinguishing all hope of life is championed over fighting for it at all costs. I think of the extermination date set by the Japanese, and how the a-bomb came just in time to save the lives of thousands of American POWs. You never know what's going to happen, so even though we might be able to assume that Julie would have lived a horrible existence until she died, Maddie didn't. "Maddie did the right thing" was the nail in the coffin. This aspect of the book may not bother you; it may not interfere with your opinion of it. I personally cannot see past it. (though I still had plenty to complain about, didn't I?) It's one of the few moral issues that I cannot prevent from coloring my overall opinion of a book.
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