Cristian wishes for the atrocities committed in Romania to be unveiled & risks his life in doing so, while not being able to trust anyone around him.

In exchange for finding out information on the American family his mother works for, the secret police will provide medicine for Cristian’s ill grandfather.

The book follows seventeen year old Cristian, who is forced to become an informer for the secret police. I’ve learned about communism and the Eastern Bloc post World War II, but I had never particularly learned about the horrifying conditions and totalitarian government in Romania in the 1980s before reading this book. Her latest release, I Must Betray You, is set in 1989 Romania until the communist regime led by dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu. However, Ruta Sepetys is such an auto-read author for me because her books always bring light to neglected or less discussed historical events. As a Holocaust Studies minor in college and now English teacher, I’ve been more selective about the historical fiction I’ve picked up over the past few years, and I definitely favor non-fiction over historical fiction when it comes to history. Ruta Sepetys is one of my favorite all-time authors and hands-down my favorite historical fiction author. He eagerly joins the revolution to fight for change when the time arrives. He’s left with only two choices: betray everyone and everything he loves-or use his position to creatively undermine the most notoriously evil dictator in Eastern Europe.Ĭristian risks everything to unmask the truth behind the regime, give voice to fellow Romanians, and expose to the world what is happening in his country. Seventeen-year-old Cristian Florescu dreams of becoming a writer, but Romanians aren’t free to dream they are bound by rules and force.Īmidst the tyrannical dictatorship of Nicolae Ceaușescu in a country governed by isolation and fear, Cristian is blackmailed by the secret police to become an informer. Communist regimes are crumbling across Europe.

I must betray you chapter summary