#1 Between Shades of Gray

I finished Where Do I Go? and, to be honest, I was disappointed with the ending. I like stories with happy endings, but this story had a fairly negative ending. Philip annoyed me for the entire book. He was never appreciative or supportive of anything Gabby did. He was so insensitive to her emotions, and often put his job before his family. When Gabby went to visit her mother, she found out that she was really in no condition to be living on her own. So Gabby brought her mother and her mother’s dog back with her to her home in Chicago. Gabby was only doing what she thought would be the best and safest decision. She had to take take of her mother! However, Philip was furious. He demanded that Gabby find a shelter for her mother in a week, or else he would push her mother out. Gabby tried, but was unsuccessful. Philip was fed up with Gabby “ruining everything”, so (spoiler) when Gabby returned home from work, she found that Philip had changed the locks to their condo, moved all of her belongings out, and he had left with their two sons. I thought this was a pretty lame move. The only silver lining was that Gabby felt like she found her calling and a new kind of family at the Manna House, which is where she ends up. I was so disappointed that Philip and Gabby couldn't work out their issues, and that Philip ran away from his problems.

Anyway, I have moved on. I just finished another book, Between Shades of Gray. This is NOT to be confused with that other book about shades of gray-- this is completely different. This is a historical fiction heart wrenching story of a girl named Lina and her family’s journey after they are forced from their home by the NKVD. In Russian, the NKVD stands for the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs. In other words, it was the precursor to the KGB, and served as a secret police under the direction of Joseph Stalin. When Lina's father is separated from her, her brother, and her mother, Lina is determined to find a way to contact him so that, no matter what prison or work camp they end up in, he will be able to find his family. Lina is a talented artist and uses whatever materials she can find to draw pictures detailing the places the NKVD takes them. Some of these drawings she is able to mail, but others she must pass along, hoping they will eventually reach her father’s hands.

One cool technique the author uses is the element of flashbacks. She will connect something in Lina’s life, to a scene or some event that occurred before they were taken. Often these are memories of her father, or other happy memories with her family. These flashbacks juxtapose sharply with Lina’s current wretched living conditions in the work camps, but they help to provide more information about the characters and their relationships. I think the flashback is a very cool writing tool, and maybe I will try to apply it to my own writing.