The Brightwood Code
Eighteen-year-old Edda St. James spends her nights working in the rigidly controlled job of telephone operator and her days sleeping to forget what happened during her recent war service near the front lines in France. She’s barely coping when an anonymous phone call brings up a word that haunts her: “Brightwood.” As she works to find the caller, other mysteries surface, including one her attractive but flippant friend Theo seems to be hiding. With war and treatment of women in the forefront, these mysteries twist in unexpected ways, keeping the truth from the reader until the very end.
This was a book I couldn’t put down. Edda is a very engaging and sympathetic character, as are her problems and dilemmas. If you’re looking for a nostalgic look back at a teenager’s life in 1918, this is not the book for you. With clear-eyed focus, the author brings us deep into the mind of a scarred, depressed young woman who believes herself to be at fault for things she had no control over. The book contains a content note that the story “touches on many issues that remain all-too-prevalent today, including misogyny, grief, PTSD, bullying, and sexual assault.” While none of these are graphic, they run like threads through the book, in a way that resonates still today.
This story will show teens that their mothers, grandmothers, and great-grandmothers were once teens, too, with the same emotions and struggles they deal with today. Young adult.
