Yet again, Sepetys transcends her classification as a writer of YA fiction and delivers a historical novel that surpasses many of the NYT bestsellers lining the fiction shelves today. With flowing prose, she perfectly encapsulates the bleakness and despair that permeated Romania under Nicolai Ceaușescu. Not only does she illustrate the control and fear that ruled the country in a matter of a few sentences, but she manages to do so while simultaneously keeping alive the beauty of the human spirit and experience even in the worst of times. And she does all this without presenting the story as a dry history textbook. Ruta has a rare gift for telling these stories in a way that is engaging, human, and balanced. It is a skill set not possessed by many, and it is why she is the only one who seems able to write about the particular moments in history that she does. I doubt any of the growing crop of authors writing over and over about WW2 or society families of ages past could even begin to tackle the topics that Sepetys handles with such ease and grace. Each new book from her is a unique experience and I eagerly anticipate them all.