I Must Betray You
I Must Betray You
By: Ruta Sepetys
“His words still haunt me. ‘You’re Cristian Florescu and I know what you’ve done.’”
This was a good but hard to read book.
‘Good’ meaning: very compelling, fast and easy to read story about a character you instantly love and feel for.
‘Hard to read’ meaning: eye-opening to the way of life and terrible happenings in Romania under the totalitarian government of Nicolae Ceaușescu.
“Nicolae Ceaușescu. Our beloved leader. Our hero. Maverick of the grand Communist Party of Romania and vampire to the necks of millions.”
Goodreads describes it correctly like this: “A gut-wrenching, startling window into communist Romania and the citizen spy network that devastated a nation”
The writing style of this book was very good. It was in the ‘teen’ section of my library, probably because the main character is seventeen, there’s a bit of a love story, it’s pretty easy to read, and there’s no swearing or sexual content. But the writing style is so good and the themes still mature that it fit for an adult read for me.
The very first line of the book (after a very good prologue) is: “Fear arrived at five o-clock.”
It hooks you pretty quickly.
The setting is Bucharest, Romania, 1989. Which is wild. I was born three months after the execution of Ceaușescu. To imagine what this teenager was going through almost in my lifetime… When you read it, your mind’s reaction is ‘this is far in the past and good thing we’re past this,’ but the reality is, this kind of thing is still going on.
Communism, is an evil thing. Dictatorships are an evil thing. I couldn’t help but lament for all the civilians in North Korea, especially, but also China and Russia and the restrictions of freedom in these places. The propaganda. The abuse. The poverty.
“Ceaușescu had stolen us from ourselves, for himself. He had broken the soul of Romania and patched a beautiful country into an apocalyptic landscape of the lost.”
Just to give you an idea what Cristian, our main character, was living in: They were taught English to use as a weapon against their enemies; everyone learned how to use a gun at the age of 14; it was illegal to speak to a foreigner or accept foreign currency; it was illegal to even say the word dollar; they had to worry about being eaten by wild dogs and often carried sticks to fend off attacks; a video player cost half as much as a car which most people couldn’t afford; women were periodically given humiliating exams to see if they were pregnant because you were penalized and taxed extra if you had no children; they waited in line for everything; electricity regularly turned off.
“Living in Bucharest was like living inside a black-and-white photo.”
“We were marked ‘present’ in attendance but were often absent from ourselves.”
Besides the physical turmoil, they endured psychological turmoil which is the hallmark of any totalitarian type of government. They had to control their minds. They did this through fear and paranoia. Anyone could be an informant. It sowed distrust among the people which hindered their ability to exchange information, share their feelings, experience unity, or gather to bring a revolution.
“‘They steal our power by making us believe we don’t have any. But words and creative phrases— they have power. Explore that power in your mind.’”
As this book depicts, people in your own family could be informants! Not because they necessarily wanted to, but because they were coerced, were avoiding a worse punishment, or were bartering for necessities like money or medicine. As became the case for Cristian. He did something illegal and was asked to inform on the son of the American diplomat that his mother cleaned for. In exchange he would get medicine for his severely sick grandfather.
“I was convinced I could keep everything hidden. After all, blankets of gloom are thick and heavy. Good for covering things, right?”
His grandfather is an important character in the book because he is a dissident. He is trying to train Cristian to think for himself. To use the creative parts of his brain. To use the power of words to make a difference.
“How could we expect others to feel our pain or hear our cries for help when all we could do was whisper?”
The character development in this book is a primary theme. Cristian, doing as he is told, playing the game Ceaușescu forces him to. He has a streak of rebellion to him from the beginning as he keeps his secret notebook detailing his feelings and what it’s really like in Romania. Rebellion in how he searches for English words to describe things.
His grandfather and his relationship with Liliana start to light a fire in him and give him courage to fight back even as he is ‘informing.’ He found a way to turn a whisper into a shout.
But the path to freedom always costs you something and it’s more than he imagined it would take.
One thing I kept thinking about while reading this book was the non-fiction book I read by Rod Drehr called ‘Live Not By Lies.’ I’m pretty sure many of the people he interviewed for his book had lived under communist rule in Romania.
In the book he quotes Hannah Arendt, the foremost scholar of totalitarianism, who says, “A totalitarian state is one that aspires to nothing less than defining and controlling reality. Truth is whatever the rulers decide it is.”
The premise of Live Not by Lies is to see the methods of totalitarianism and how we actually see a ‘soft’ version of that manifesting in the United States. Just because we don’t have gulags or the Securitate to keep track of all the informers, doesn’t mean we don’t have some concerning practices in our own country that are taking away our freedoms and changing what reality and ‘truth’ is. Definitely worth thinking about.
The other concerning thing I thought about after reading this book was the recent surge in positivity towards socialism and communism. Even though there is not a single positive example to point to to show how communism would be a good thing, there are a lot of people that are advocating for moving toward that kind of government. These stats are enough to raise concern.
Hopefully reading Cristian’s story— which is so many people’s story— readers will be reminded of the path communism inevitably takes and how no one benefits from it except the man at the top, sitting in his palace with all his stolen wealth, scaring people into believing his created reality.
Recommendation
I think this is a must-read book. It’s books like these that remind us of the atrocities done to humanity and help us never to repeat them.
Based on the author’s note, this book is well-researched, and though it’s historical fiction, there’s a lot pulled from people’s true stories. You’ll feel a lot of feelings in this book and it won’t take you long to become invested in Cristian’s story.
I think this book is good for young adults or regular adults and will hopefully inspire readers to understand the importance of critical thinking and courage to stand up for truth.
It definitely earns its nomination for one of the best Young Adult Fiction books in 2022 on Goodreads.
[Content Advisory: 1 s-word, no sexual content; towards the end there’s more violence and torture and traumatic experiences for young kids]
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