Review: Salt To The Sea by Ruta Sepetys

Title: Salt To The Sea

Author: Ruta Sepetys

Genre: Young Adult, Historical Fiction

Format: paperback, 391 pages, published by Penguin Books

Goodreads Rating: 4.36/5

My Rating: 5/5

Review:

“War torn Germany. Four young people. Four dark secrets. 

They come from different lands but each of them is hunted, and haunted, by tragedy, lies … and war. As thousands of refugees flock to the coast, desperate to escape the advancing Red Army, the paths of four young people converge. All are hoping to board the Willhelm Gustloff, a ship that promises safety and freedom. Yet not all promises can be kept.

Inspired by the worst disaster in maritime history, Ruta Sepetys, award-winning author of Between Shades of Gray, brilliantly tells a shocking, illuminating and ultimately life-affirming story from World War II.”

I chose to put above the blurb from the back of the book because… I have no idea how to tell you what it is about without disclosing too much from the story. So there you go, that’s what made me pick this book up. And oh! what a book this is!!! I am going to start with the cons this time. Why? Because I love this book so much that I had to rack my brain to find something that I didn’t like. Without forward ado…

The cons:

1. Alfred. He is one of the four characters whose POV we get in this amazing book and I just… can’t… He was creepy and annoying. I do kind of see why his part of the story is important though. We get to see it through the eyes of a guy who’s on the other side. But I still couldn’t like him.
2. Um… that it ended… I finished this in ONE DAY. I had to study that day but I couldn’t because this book was so GOOD and it kept tempting me. So, I finished it in one day and… You know that moment when you want to finish a book but you don’t want to finish it at the same time? It was so good that I didn’t want it to end.

Those are the cons. That I could come up with without spoiling anything… Remember this is inspired by a disaster… I can’t say anything else…

The pros:

Well… pretty much everything that wasn’t in the cons…

This book is so… amazing, beautiful, breathtaking, gripping, heart wrenching, so well written with characters that you can’t but like not Alfred and the story… the story fills you with all kinds of emotions and by the end of it you will be crying your eyes out, like me. Remember “disaster” in the blurb?

This is a Young Adult novel. Maybe, not always, but sometimes historical fiction isn’t easy to read. Salt To The Sea however is very easy to read, the chapters are short, they are interesting and besides the journey, we get some insight in the past of the characters. The Characters, as I said before, are very likeable not Alfred/ maybeeee but not to me and their interactions and the bonds they make between each other and how much they end up caring for each other… I’m going to stop here before I slip some spoilers. Or start tearing up. They are of different nationalities and yet they manage to form these amazing friendships and they… really broke my heart and made me cry. A lot.

As expected from this genre, it gives you an image of the time it depicts and Sepetys did a lot of research to get this as accurate as possible. This only makes this book more impactful. These characters may not be real but I can imagine this story of that event occurring. It shows how merciless and horrible people can be, but, also how people can be kind and loving.

Just when you think this war has taken everything you loved, you meet someone and realize that somehow you still have more to give.

This is one of the quotes that touched me and when you read the book and find this, you’ll see what I’m talking about. War strips humanity away but sometimes we can see it giving it back too.

What had human beings become? Did war make us evil or just activate an evil already lurking within us?

These four major characters have secrets that haunt them and they try to cope with them in their one way while trying to survive a war that is everywhere around them and they know they might not make it. But they move forward.

It is honestly very hard for me to put into words my feelings for this book because… I love it and I think it’s so brilliant and sad and just marked me. I won’t be able to forget this book, this story. It touched on a subject that I find interesting, an event that I had no idea about but now I do and it breaks my heart knowing how those people may have suffered. So, if you want to suffer, get your heart broken a bit but find yourself perhaps a new favorite book like me then give Salt To The Sea a try.

I leave you with one quote from this wonderful book and I hope you enjoyed this… attempt at a decent, spoiler free review. Bye!

War is catastrophe. It breaks families in irretrievable pieces. But those who are gone are not necessarily lost.