Bookworm in the City

I must betray you / Ruta Sepetys (2022)
What it is: YA recent historical fiction
Did I like it: foarte mult (which is Romanian for very much)

Wonderful friend P, knowing I have never been to Romania, sent me this book and explained that it was meant to fill the no. 1 position of the new reading challenge. It makes me one lucky and incredibly grateful Bookworm to have friends like this!

The story starts in October 1989 which means Romania is still under the tightly dictatorial regime of the Ceaușescu’s.
Protagonist Cristian Flores is a seventeen-year-old high school student. Cristian lives with his parents, sister, and grandfather in a typical apartment building where they are used to the elevator not working due to electricity outages. They are used to whispering inside their home, knowing that listening devices are everywhere. They are used to having only one lightbulb in the apartment. They are used to standing in endless lines for groceries.
Cristian is an aspiring writer, and he’s being a typical curious teenager, asking questions, challenging the authorities. His grandfather encourages this, his mother freaks out over it, his father doesn’t voice any opinion, and his sister quietly supports him.
Then Cristian’s life gets turned upside down as he gets blackmailed into informing on his friends and family by the Securitate. The stronghold of the regime relied on this network of informers, creating a fear of never knowing who was trustworthy and who was reporting to the authorities.
Left feeling he has no choice, Cristian tries to make the most of his informer status by demanding medication for his terminally ill grandfather in return. He decides to feed his handler a minimum of useful information and at the same time find out who has betrayed him, roped him into this position.
Cristian receives a special assignment from his handler, which is to inform on the son of an American diplomat. Cristian has an “in” because his mother works at the family’s home as a cleaner. He hates his task but is curious at the same time and cannot resist getting to know a teenager from the West. This Dan not only shows Cristian home videos from his friends in the States, but also introduces him to the American Library in Bucharest. Here, Cristian reads Time magazine and to his shock sees a report on neighbouring country Hungary being freed from the Soviet communist grip. This news had not reached Bucharest yet, and it makes him realize just how isolated the country is. It also makes him wonder, if people can fight an oppressive regime in other countries, couldn’t they do that in Romania as well?
Angry with the system and tired of not allowed to be free, he throws caution in the wind and decides to become part of the change. Together with two friends, he joins students in a big protest. This protest becomes the big finale of the story and things move fast and it ends with a big bang.

If any setting is fitting for angsty young adult, it is one that is seeped in paranoia and angst all around.
The story reads easy, the tension building with each chapter. Cristian is a great protagonist, insecure about his feelings, questioning his own actions and dreaming big.
The author obviously did a lot of research, which delivers a setting that is well-written and believable.
This was an amazing read and if you like to read (recent) historical novels, YA or not, do yourself a favor and add it to your TBR list; you won’t regret it!