It is unlikely that the prisoners would have even encountered each other in the outside world, and yet they now depend upon one another to make it through another day. The friendships in Rose though are different because they are born of circumstance - horrible circumstance. It wouldn't be an Elizabeth Wein story without powerful relationships. Something else that helps Rose are her friendships with the other prisoners. For Rose, her poems help keep her from becoming a schmootzich, someone whose desperation has turned her into a savage.

It's about surviving a place that was designed to systematically dehumanize and purge its prisoners. It lifts you and lets you plummet.'It's about maintaining hope while surviving a reality that is harsher than most people can imagine. 'Hope is the most treacherous thing in the world. This story is also about hope, when it's not that thing with feathers. And all the other women whose names Roza forces Rose to memorize in case something happens to them so that their stories, their names can be told. It's not so much about Nazi medical experimentation as it is about Roza. What I love about Wein's writing is her ability to take historical events and facts and use them to buttress her story. One of the Rabbits, Roza, was only 14 when she was captured by the Nazis. She encounters a group of Polish women who have been nicknamed the Rabbits because they were subject to horrible experimental medical procedures. She ends up in Ravensbruck, a women's concentration camp, along with women from France, Poland, and Germany. No one has a clue where she or her plane is - because she has been captured and taken to Germany. Her uncle uses his connections to get her a flying assignment to France and it is on the return back to England where she disappears. She goes to England to join the Air Transport Auxiliary and assist the Allied cause.

Rose Justice is an eager American pilot who learned flying at the knee of her father, the owner of a flight school in Pennsylvania. It's also for that reason, though, that I think a book like Rose Under Fire is so important. The experiences of the women at Ravensbruck were so horrible and beyond imagination, it's no wonder that people at the time didn't believe the stories coming out of Europe. It's not a quick read nor is it an easy read.

It was so much harder to take knowing that all these atrocities were based on actual events. With Rose, even though I knew it was also a work of Elizabeth Wein's ability and imagination, it felt so much like a memoir. However, I never forgot that it was a work of historical fiction. It was a heartbreaking and beautiful story about friendship and courage set during World War II that I compulsively read in a day. Verity was one of my favorite books last year. To me, Rose Under Fire was a harder read than Verity.

Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein