Ruta Sepetys cover designs are not the kind that would catch my attention in a bookstore. In fact, Ruta Sepetys was unknown to me until Fully Booked and Penguin Random House gifted our book club with six of her books.
Although the books will continue to be passed around Ex Libris members, I picked I Must Betray You for the reason that Romania does not often turn up in the books that come our way.
And what a surprise when reading this made me realize how much the Philippines and Romania have in common! At times I could easily interchange Ceaușescu with Marcos in my head and the story would still make sense:
Wealth didn’t accurately describe it. Excess, extravagance, greed, and gluttony, those words were more accurate. Countless estates across the country, hundreds of millions salted away in foreign bank accounts…
“I can’t bear it,” said Liliana. “We’ve been suffering for years, existing off scrawny chicken feet, with just one forty-watt light bulb per home. And they’ve been living like kings. Gourmet food, foreign goods, antiques, jewelry, fur coats, hundreds of pairs of shoes.”
As Sepetys writes for a younger audience, I can only wish I had more books like this growing up! I would have alternated them between the Nancy Drews and the Hardy Boys, and it would have deepened a younger person’s understanding of self and the world.
They steal our power by making us believe we don’t have any… But words and creative phrases — they have power, Cristian. Explore this power in your mind.
The Book-Butterfly 
We don’t come across too many Romanian books that’s for sure! This one sounds like a good one! X
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