As if relationships are not complicated enough, a real openness is not possible. Cristian is tormented with his inner struggle about what to do and, to add to that, he falls in love. I appreciated a lot of things about his story.

Cristian’s story is revealing of this spread mistrust and it is a shocking one. The fear of the regime was constant and the impossibility of trusting your own family made it even worse. After the regime dropped, there where cases made public of brothers informing on their sisters.

In reality, this number is surely higher. It is said one in ten Romanians was an informer. Being blackmailed into becoming an informer, he is forced to grow up early, forced to search early for an understanding of the world around him, all the while not ever being able to trust those around him. This is what Cristian realizes and what actually pushes him to try to expose him to the entire world.Ĭristian’s story is a deeply moving one. In reality, Ceausescu was collaborating with Russia and favored strong economical ties with them. He was appreciated by the West, as he had stood against Russia, the Soviet Union of the time, and had supported an independence of Eastern states. Something that the author understood right away and was a powerful message of this book was how two-faced Ceausescu had been. He resolves in trying to outsmart the police, trying to undermine the regime and expose to the world what it’s like to be Romanian under a dictator. When Cristian is blackmailed to collaborate with them and spy on an American family, we come to know his inner struggle with the decision as well as the shame of his family finding out. They were to be spied on, not to be trusted and forbidden to talk to without express permission from the secret police. Foreigners, for example, were treated like enemies by default. Sadly, in Ceausescu’s regime, it is really easy to become a state enemy. He tells us his story and that of his family in this totalitarian regime, when he is approached by the “Securitate” – the secret section of the police that deals with state enemies. The main character is Cristian Florescu, an ordinary seventeen-year-old who lives in Bucharest in 1989. With this book, why that was is a lot more clear, as the author doesn’t only look at the historical part, but looks deep at the humans that lived through it and their reactions. A proof of that is that we, as a people, have had a difficult time healing that part of ourselves. Living in fear and poverty is something that leaves deep marks. They made sure I was aware of what happened and also that I read enough about it to understand it. But my parents and grandparents remembered everything. I evidently don’t remember anything from that time. I’m not old enough to have lived through communism, I was two when Ceausescu stood trial and got executed for the crimes against his own people.

Ruta sepetys talks about i must