I Must Betray You

The State controls the amount of food we eat, our electricity, our transportation, the information we receive. But with philosophy, we control our own minds. What if the internal landscape was ours to build and paint?

A powerful read. While the writing style was not always for me (e.g., dramatic line breaks), the tone, setting, and realism were on point. Reading Sepetys' postscript, it is eminently clear she researched the hell out of this book and pulled no punches in conveying the truth. It inspired me to learn more about a chapter of history I knew very little about.

I don't even know where to begin - this book was everything that I expected and so much more. I'm writing this from the point of view of a person who is Romanian, but hasn't lived through the revolution - my parents did.

It is very clear to me that the author has done her research in a very thorough way. There were lots of things that impressed me, that made me smile thinking how beautiful it is to see them on paper, written by a foreign author, read by the entire world. Things like the names of the stray dogs Fetita and Turbatu (which are Romanian words for “Little Girl” and “The rabid one”). Things like the jokes Bunu and Cristian were saying with “Bula”, who is a very popular character in Romanian jokes. This book truly felt like home to me, even though it shows the not-so-pretty parts of Romania.

“I Must Betray You” is a very, very painful book. It shows the history of Romania in the communist era, the struggles our people have endured: no electricity, no hot water, waiting in never-ending lines for scraps of food, being opressed, not having the freedom to say what they were thinking, being followed by the Securitate, not being able to trust anyone, not even their own family. I love Ruta Sepetys for writing about Romania, for making people understand what my country has been through. There are a lot of people who have no idea what truly happened in Romania and I feel like the world SHOULD know.

This book made me cry so much. I literally cried for the entire second half of the book, I was reading through my tears the story of Cristian and his friends and family. How they fought with the communists, how they struggled to survive.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to read about a very painful history, but beware that this book is painful and you're going to neet lots and lots of tissues.