Liked the history aspects of this as I did not know about Virginia Hall prior to reading this book. However, there was a lot of opinion treated as fact from the author which is just bad history writing.

Code Name Badass is about Virginia Hall, one of the coolest spies in the last hundred years. Unfortunately Code Name Badass has tone issues that are so distracting that it's easy to accidentally forget how awesome Hall really is. The author is essentially inserted as a character, turning this narrative nonfiction into a long-winded campfire story from 2012 about Hall. Even as someone that shares some of the opinions expressed, many lines were so distracting that I have trouble recommending this to my teen patrons. Hall is absolutely worth learning about, and if the author's constant insertion of opinion and supposition doesn't deter you, this is worth a read.

Codename Badass: The True Story of Virginia Hall by Heather Demetrios

“I’d say most of what we celebrate Virginia Hall for is audacious courage and the ability to stay calm, cool,and collected in the face of personal tragedy and under enemy fire…”

Anyone who says they hate nonfiction should give this one a try. Snarky, saucy and at times hilarious, Demetrios is no neutral narrator but a great champion of Virginia Hall and commenter on all the problems of the time she faced as an ambitious woman attacking the world of foreign service in the theater of WWII and the Cold War after a partial leg amputation.

As a former history teacher I deeply understand the power of engagement with topics that feel absurdly removed from real life. I appreciated the accessibility of Demetrios’s storytelling. Engaging readers in their emotional core guarantees the story never gets boring. Because she harnesses the assessment of context from the perspective of 2021 while acknowledging the realities of the period in which Hall lived, Demetrios deftly writes the importance of Hall and other women back into the events of WWII without falling into a revisionist trap that would detract from the value of her telling.

“What made her a trailblazer in the field was her strategizing. Dindy played a long game, her slow and steady maneuvering in the French countryside laying the groundwork for a whole new kind of large-scale approach to battle that would be useful decades later in wars in which armies no longer clashed on fields but fought with small teams of soldiers in alleyways and rocky mountain passages. She was audacious and daring, ready to carve a place for herself when none was offered, fighting for her seat at the table of SOE and OSS agents who distinguished themselves as leaders.”

It also allows her to comment on both the challenges Hall faced and the opportunities provided by her status, money and race.

With chapter titles like “Hell Hath No Fury”, “Girl Boss”, “It’s Raining Men”, and “Broads, Brothels and the Boches” and header quotes like, “I love to see a young girl go out and grab the world by the lapels. Life’s a bitch. You’ve got to go out and kick ass.” – Maya Angelou, Demetrios grabs readers’ attention then continues to engage with writing littered with current cultural references from movies to social media. All, while guiding readers to understand the vast difference between the realities of 1950 and now. Demetrios’s conversational tone strikes the right chord for the audience she looks to engage: teens looking to harness their own inner Badass.

“WHO DOES THAT? Who is like, Hey, I want to help, so I’m going to enlist in another country’s army and drive an ambulance on the front lines even though I have one leg, no medical training, and probably not a lot of experience driving an ambulance? Dindy. That’s who. The rest of us just give to UNICEF and call it a day.”

While the extensive profanity makes this a 9-12 book rather than a middle school read, it doesn’t detract from the value of the history. It works to make Codename Badass more accessible to Demetrios’s intended audience. Fans of John Green’s Crash Course history series will find much to love here. Looking to expand your fiction / nonfiction pairings? Code Name Badass would make a beautiful nonfiction pair for Code Name Verity. I’ve been a fan of Heather Demetrios since I read I’ll Meet You There. Reading Codename Badass cements her as a “must read” author for me. I’ll preorder whatever she writes next.

Who was the "Limping Lady of Lyon?" "The most dangerous Allied spy in France?" That would be Virginia Hall, a member of both the British SOE and the American OSS, not to mention being a volunteer in the French Army, and later the CIA. So who is Virginia Hall? Read Code Name Badass to find out.

Heather Demetrios was wandering around the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. when she came upon a display of Virginia Hall memorabilia and was intrigued when she learned that Virgina Hall had made the Gestapo's most wanted list while operating with an artificial leg! This was a story worth writing in grand style!

Demetrios opens Code Name Badass with Virginia "Dindy" Hall in context, i.e. providing information on her early life, her love of the outdoors, and her cheese-making skills not to mention her language skills. She attended Harvard for a year, then transferred to Barnard College, and then studied abroad in Paris and Vienna. After college, Dindy got a job with the Foreign Service as a clerk in Warsaw, Izmar (in Turkey where she had a hunting accident that cost her a leg), and later in Venice and Estonia. In 1939, she left the State Department and moved to Paris. With the beginning of WWII, she joined the French Army as an ambulance driver. After the fall of France, Dindy made a strategic withdrawal to England, There she ended up in the Special Operations Executive and was back in France as an agent in Lyon. That lasted until 1942 when Vichy France was occupied by the Germans and she dashed over the Pyrenees on her artificial leg. In 1944, Dindy left the SOE and joined the Office of Strategic Services as an agent in France where her cheese making skills provided her cover while she recruited, organized, and armed Resistance forces. When the war ended, she was planning on infiltrating into Austria. After the war, Dindy joined the the Central Intelligence Agency in the covert action arm. She finally retired in 1966 and returned to the Maryland farm of her childhood with her husband whom she had met during her service in France. She died in 1982.

In Code Name Badass, Heather Demetrios provides an interesting take on Virginia Hall and the role women played in the French Resistance during World War II. She documents the facts, provides the juicy details and worships how Dindy succeeded in fulfilling her missions despite all odds. Do not let the publisher fool you, this is a tale for all ages to enjoy!

Virginia Hall is one of my absolute heroes, so grabbing a review copy of Code Name Badass: The True Story of Virginia Hall by Heather Demetrios was a no brainer. The book is designed to describe the incredible career of this female spy (with only one leg) and her extensive work to support the allies during the Vichy government in France during World War II.  She staged daring rescues, became the main contact for so many spies, and when her cover was blown, she returned to the area as a radio operator. Being a radio operator was one of the most dangerous missions in World War II, as German vans would drive around with scanning equipment nightly to locate operators and have them executed as soon as possible for sending back valuable intelligence to the Allies. 

Demeterios writes the book using modern language and slang, which can be a bit jarring. It might just be my love of Virginia Hall that makes me wince when phrases like "AF" are thrown into the book, I realized that I'm not the target audience. While labeled for young readers, the book feels like its written for late high school students, or adults struggling to be cool on Tik Tok and Snapchat. In short, while the storytelling method gets the point across, it sometimes feels cringeworthy when you're telling a story as intricate and full of excitement as that of Virginia Hall.  Demetrios uses Virginia's nickname "Dindy" which also drove me a bit nuts while reading the book.  I get that the intent is to tell the story to a new generation, but it almost feels like its talking down to the generation in question. I don't know that I'd want my daughter reading some of the language in this book at a young reader age. 

Code Name Badass is available November 2021.

I recieved a free copy from netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I wanted to like this book and maybe Virginia Hall is a fascinating person but I hate, hate the writing style of this book. I made it about 10% but the way this author writes feels juvenile and irritating. Not for me. DNF.