Loved it!
Ruta Sepetys' last book -- Between Shades of Gray -- was a hauntingly beautiful teen novel about a Lithuanian girl who, along with her family, gets shipped off to a work camp during Stalin's reign. I liked it so much that I was hesitant to pick up Out of the Easy, afraid that the second book could disappoint me if it didn't live up to the tremendously high expectations from the first. I don't know why this mattered, but it did.
In reality, while Between Shades of Gray was depressing and beautiful, Out of the Easy was a delight that was much different, showcasing Sepetys' talent in a range of historical settings. It had better-developed characters (most likely because they weren't limited to the confines of their circumstances at the work camp and this freedom allowed their complexity to come through better/didn't squash their humanity), and the plot was more intricate (again, because of the very different circumstances the settings allowed). I really doubted that I could care about a girl from the 50s whose mom is a prostitute in Louisiana, but I did. A lot. The only thing that could have been improved was that the ending was a little to abrupt compared to the pace of the rest of the novel.
Sepetys writes with rich description and finds hope in despairing situations. I really look forward to whatever she has coming next and highly recommend her to those who haven't yet picked her up.
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