Ruta Sepetys
Author of Between Shades of Gray
About the Author
Ruta Sepetys is the award-winning, bestselling author of Between Shades of Gray, Out of the Easy and Salt to the Sea, for which she won the 2017 Carnegie Medal. From the Hardcover edition. (Bowker Author Biography)
Works by Ruta Sepetys
Adio, New Orleans 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Legal name
- Šepetys, Rūta
- Birthdate
- 1967-11-19
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- Detroit, Michigan, USA
- Places of residence
- Hillsdale, Michigan, USA
Los Angeles, California, USA
Nashville, Tennessee, USA - Education
- Hillsdale College (BS|International Finance)
- Occupations
- Novelist
Business Manager
Nonprofit Director - Organizations
- Make a Noise Foundation
Mike Curb College of Entertainment
Sepetys Entertainment Group, Inc. - Awards and honors
- Cross of the Knight of the Order (Lithuania)
Rockefeller Bellagio fellow
First American writer of young adult literature to speak at the European Parliament - Short biography
- Ruta Sepetys is a Lithuanian-American whose parents' history inspired her to research and then write about the Lithuanian deportation by the Soviets in the 1930s and 1940s.Ruta Sepetys (born November 19, 1967) is a Lithuanian-American writer of historical fiction. As an author, she is a #1 New York Times bestseller, international bestseller, and winner of the Carnegie Medal.
She is a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Fellow and the first American writer of young adult literature to speak at the European Parliament and NATO. Her work is published in over sixty countries and forty languages and is currently in development for film and television.
Born in Detroit, Sepetys is the daughter of a Lithuanian refugee. She earned a B.S. in International Finance from Hillsdale College. While overseas, she studied at the Centre d’études Européennes in Toulon, France and at the ICN Graduate Business School in Nancy, France.
Following graduation Sepetys moved to Los Angeles. In 1994, she launched Sepetys Entertainment Group, Inc., an entertainment management firm representing Grammy-award-winning guitarist Steve Vai, multi-platinum songwriter Desmond Child, Orange County modern rockers Lit, and Emmy-nominated film composer Niels Bye Nielsen.
In 2002, Sepetys was featured in Rolling Stone magazine's "Women in Rock" special issue as a woman driven to make a difference. Sepetys is on the Board of Advisors for the Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business at Belmont University and is also a director of the Make a Noise Foundation, a national non-profit that raises money for music education. Sepetys published her first novel in 2011 and currently resides in Nashville, Tennessee. She has been described as a "seeker of lost stories" who hopes to give voice to those who weren't able to tell their story.
Members
Reviews
The Bletchley Riddle by Ruta Sepetys
10.50€
I think I'm an outlier here, but I didn't really enjoy this as much as I'd hoped. I thought it was a really interesting premise -- two teens in England in WWII trying to find out if their mom was killed. I liked the background on codebreaking, and Enigma more specifically, and their efforts to solve codes that are mysteriously mailed to them. I also really enjoyed Lizzie as a character, she was highly entertaining!
*
But I found the writing to be somewhat clunky. Just as an example, the relationship between Lizzie and Jakob felt inconsistent (and not in a way that would indicate growth, in a way that made me think I had missed something.) And there's a plot point with the diary Lizzie finds that it is possible it's not a plot hole, but felt like it needed a bit more to explain how it happened. The ending felt really anti-climactic as well.
*
This definitely reads as more of a middle-grade book, so perhaps this would have worked better if at least Lizzie was younger. I've absolutely loved other YA books that Ruta Sepetys has written, but this just didn't live up to my expectations.… (more)
*
But I found the writing to be somewhat clunky. Just as an example, the relationship between Lizzie and Jakob felt inconsistent (and not in a way that would indicate growth, in a way that made me think I had missed something.) And there's a plot point with the diary Lizzie finds that it is possible it's not a plot hole, but felt like it needed a bit more to explain how it happened. The ending felt really anti-climactic as well.
*
This definitely reads as more of a middle-grade book, so perhaps this would have worked better if at least Lizzie was younger. I've absolutely loved other YA books that Ruta Sepetys has written, but this just didn't live up to my expectations.… (more)
While I typically don't read a lot of middle grade books, The Bletchley Riddle really kept my interest. It was hard to put down, and despite being 400 pages, I felt like I was flying through the book. Lizzie was definitely my favorite of the two protagonists, with a spirit and determination that kept the story exciting. I went into the book with little knowledge about Bletchley Park or the World War II codebreaking efforts, so I enjoyed the insight into such a historically impactful place. We even get to meet some real people who were part of the effort, such as Alan Turing, which gave the story even more validity. I thought the explanations of the Enigma machine were explained in an understandable way, even though it obviously was quite complicated. It was a nice touch that some puzzles/riddles were included in the book, so I could try to solve them along with the characters.
Thank you to Penguin Young Readers Group, Viking Books for Young Readers, and NetGalley for the advance review copy of The Bletchley Riddle! All opinions expressed in my review are completely my own.… (more)
Thank you to Penguin Young Readers Group, Viking Books for Young Readers, and NetGalley for the advance review copy of The Bletchley Riddle! All opinions expressed in my review are completely my own.… (more)
Daniel is the son of a rich Texan oil magnate visiting his mother's native Madrid in the summer of 1957. The family is staying at the Castellana Hilton, hotbed of American society abroad, and while his father woos Franco for drilling rights in Spain, Daniel takes photos for the portfolio he hopes will win the Magnum photography prize. Ana is the daughter of schoolteachers murdered during the Spanish Civil War for wanting to start a Montessori (non-Catholic) school. She works as a maid at the Castella Hilton to help support her family: older sister Julia, her husband Antonio, and their infant daughter; and her brother Rafa, who spent years being tortured in a Anuxilio Social home for boys before escaping. She is assigned to take care of Daniel's family during their stay. As the two teens become friends, they realize the gulf that exists between them, but are drawn together in ways that won't become apparent for years.
This historical novel attempts to shed light on numerous social issues during the "war after war," Franco's 39 year long dictatorship: the estimated 300,000 infants stolen from Republicans and sympathizers and adopted by Catholic families; the notorious Auxilio Social homes for children of "enemy" parents; and the institutionalized silence that buried these issues for decades. It also attempts to depict the complexity of US-Spanish relations during this time. Numerous official documents and transcripts of former US diplomats are interspersed throughout the novel, and these, along with the photo section at the end of the book, lend an air of historical veracity. The author writes:
During my study and examination, the fragile tensions between history and memory emerged. Some were desperate to remember and other were desperate to forget. I was haunted by the descriptions of war—and also war after war. Hunger, isolation, fear, and the socialization of silence. Suffering emerged the victor in Spain, touching all sides...
The Spanish Civil War and its aftermath is less visible in the US than WWII and the Holocaust. This novel and it's extensive bibliography will hopefully inspire young people to learn more about it.
The novel is written in very short chapters which keeps the action tight and allows for frequent changes of setting. After covering a few weeks in great detail, I was surprised to find an 18 year gap before a surprising denouement. Although I didn't find the novel as compelling as [Salt to the Sea], it did provoke a latent interest in learning more about this time period. I will follow up with [Paracuellos: Children of the Defeated in Franco's Fascist Spain] by Carlos Giménez.… (more)
This historical novel attempts to shed light on numerous social issues during the "war after war," Franco's 39 year long dictatorship: the estimated 300,000 infants stolen from Republicans and sympathizers and adopted by Catholic families; the notorious Auxilio Social homes for children of "enemy" parents; and the institutionalized silence that buried these issues for decades. It also attempts to depict the complexity of US-Spanish relations during this time. Numerous official documents and transcripts of former US diplomats are interspersed throughout the novel, and these, along with the photo section at the end of the book, lend an air of historical veracity. The author writes:
During my study and examination, the fragile tensions between history and memory emerged. Some were desperate to remember and other were desperate to forget. I was haunted by the descriptions of war—and also war after war. Hunger, isolation, fear, and the socialization of silence. Suffering emerged the victor in Spain, touching all sides...
The Spanish Civil War and its aftermath is less visible in the US than WWII and the Holocaust. This novel and it's extensive bibliography will hopefully inspire young people to learn more about it.
The novel is written in very short chapters which keeps the action tight and allows for frequent changes of setting. After covering a few weeks in great detail, I was surprised to find an 18 year gap before a surprising denouement. Although I didn't find the novel as compelling as [Salt to the Sea], it did provoke a latent interest in learning more about this time period. I will follow up with [Paracuellos: Children of the Defeated in Franco's Fascist Spain] by Carlos Giménez.… (more)
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Statistics
- Works
- 11
- Members
- 13,175
- Popularity
- #1,772
- Rating
- 4.2
- Reviews
- 808
- ISBNs
- 230
- Languages
- 18
- Favorited
- 11
