Welcome back to YA Cafe, where book lovers can gather and chat about teen literature. I’m your barista, along with Gabriela from iggi&gabi. Each Friday we pick from a menu of topics and share our thoughts on our respective blogs.

Today’s Special: YA Cafe Book Club: Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys (no spoilers!)

For this month’s book club, Gabi and I decided to chat about a YA book that scared us. I originally planned to select a YA horror to discuss, since I haven’t read much in the genre. But then I decided instead to showcase an unconventional-yet-still-horrifying book–Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys. It’s a more serious book, but an important one nonetheless. Here’s the blurb from Goodreads: 

Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they’ve known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circle, to a work camp in the coldest reaches of Siberia. Here they are forced, under Stalin’s orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the cruelest of conditions.

Lina finds solace in her art, meticulously – and at great risk – documenting events by drawing, hoping these messages will make their way to her father’s prison camp to let him know they are still alive. It is a long and harrowing journey, spanning years and covering 6,500 miles, but it is through incredible strength, love, and hope that Lina ultimately survives. Between Shades of Gray is a novel that will steal your breath and capture your heart.

Like I said, this isn’t a traditional scary book. There are no monsters, villains, or zombies. It’s a historical novel, based on real events. I think this only makes the story scarier.

Imagine being taken from your home and packed with others into a filthy train car, where you spend weeks being treated like an animal. Where you receive little food and water, and are forced to pee out of a hole in the corner of a train car. Imagine being separated from your father and never knowing if he’s okay. Seeing people die in front of you, including children. Being forced into slavery and then brought to the North Pole to die.

These are the horrors Lina and her family experience. Let me tell you, it was terrifying to read. What was most scary was that all of this actually happened. Nothing is fabricated or exaggerated. People suffered and died. Millions of them.

I don’t necessarily expect this to happen to me, but the reality is–violence like this still happens around the world and people are suffering like this at this very moment. Forget monsters, vampires and zombies. Evil people and groups in this world are MUCH worse.

Ultimately though, Between Shades of Gray is a story about hope. It’s about surviving. One of the highlights is the fact that Lina is an artist and uses her gift to express herself and find her father.

What makes this book especially interesting and important is what Ruta Sepetys wrote in her author note. When survivors returned to Lithuania in the mid-1950s (after 10-15 years spent as refugees in Siberia), their homes were occupied by Soviets and they were treated like criminals. Those who spoke of what they experienced were sent back to Siberia or put in jail. They couldn’t openly speak about what they’d gone through. For decades, their stories were kept secret. I can’t even imagine how difficult it must have been for them to go on, pretending it never happened.

Their stories need to be told, and some are in this book. People need to know what happened. There’s that quote, “those who forget history are doomed to repeat it,” which I believe is true. Hopefully exposing teens to these survivor stories will inspire them to be compassionate and loving adults. Maybe one day we’ll live in a world where these types of things are difficult to imagine.

Have you read Between Shades of Gray?

What YA book scares you? Tell us on Twitter with the #YACafe hashtag. And check out Gabi’s pick on her blog!

Next week, we’ll share our next month’s book club topic so stay tuned!