I Must Betray You is a piece of historical fiction about the communist Romanian government in 1989. The main character, 17 year old Cristian Florescu, dreams of a world where he can finally be the writer he’s always dreamed of becoming; however, he gets blackmailed by the police and becomes a secret informer. Cristian must decide between informing on his friends or standing up and rebelling against the government.

This novel was honestly a lot better than I had expected. I’m not typically one to enjoy historical fiction, but I’ll make an exception for this. The story line was interesting and had me hooked the entire time. I enjoyed how Cristian was constantly faced with a difficult choice that changed and evolved throughout the novel.

My favorite parts of this book were the little “mission reports” after every few chapters. They really had me curious about who the other secret informer was and how they kept writing these reports on Cristian. It added to the suspense of the novel, keeping the readers on their toes.

On a scale of one to ten, I would rate this book a solid eight. The novel overall was greatly written, but I just felt that the ending was a bit rushed. I was really enjoying the action packed scenes, but they were very short and quick. Other than that, it is a great novel.

I would highly recommend this novel to anyone, even if they’re not a fan of historical fiction. This is just a very well written novel with many historical accuracies.