I Must Betray You

“I Must Betray You” is a gripping, compelling historical fiction novel set in 1989 Romania. Seventeen-year-old Cristian Florescu is forced into a position of blackmail. His two choices are to betray everything and everyone he loves or use his position to undermine his country's government to fight for revolution.     The book does a great job of immersing the reader in an atmosphere of fear and of uncertainty in the times of Eastern European communism. The characters are well developed, and their struggles and motivations are presented realistically, capturing the large array of human experience and ultimately making it feel full of life. (Ruta Sepetys is known for this as she gets inspiration from real stories and interviews of people who lived in times she writes about).    I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in historical fiction, espionage, or stories about the human experience in times of extreme adversity.