“Yet amidst all that, life has spit in the eye of death.”
Dear neighbors,
Sorry for randomly crying at our most recent dinner party. This book is to blame.
Dear friend group,
Sorry for randomly hand flailing when mentioning this book.
Dear Barnes and Nobles,
Sorry for squeaking vaguely loudly when seeing this book at the shelf and considering running at everyone in the store and shoving it into their faces.
I just really like this book.
(Also: Yay! First co-written review! With my favoritest and bestest friend-person, Emma, over at Bookishly Minded and also: Of Starry Knights and Lullabies)
Stats:
Genre: Historical Fiction feat. pain
Feelings: Hahahahahahahahaa. Ow.
Cuteness: I went into this not wanting romance and came out with an otp don't judge me
Fast pacing:Oh yes
Series: HA. HA. HA.
Read if you like: Tragedy stories, ww2 books, or her previous book, Between Shades of Grey. THERE. ARE. CAMEOS.
Content: VIolence. Some very bleak things, and a few images that are very haunting. Some disturbing things regarding what humans do under that much panic and chaos. Some things that cast vague suggestions towards sex, but none actually happening.
Trigger warning? Violence. Loss of babies, siblings, children, pretty much every type of person. Suggestions at rape though it's never said outright.
In summary... Four teenagers. Four different lives. Millions of people on the coast during a soviet advance, trying to get aboard a ship that will take them to safety. One of those, is the Willhelm Gustloff. These characters paths will cross and their lives will never be the same.
Thoughts: Snow, rot, rough cloth and a hand tightly wrapped around yours
Messages: Forgiveness, prejudice, the powers of relationships, no matter the type. At it's heart, this book is about love and courage, but not always in the sense you would expect.
Rating: 5/5 stars
This is a spoiler free review, HOWEVER, if you know nothing about the Willhelm Gustloff, I suggest reading this book first, because I'll spoil that part. But it's history, so.....
I read Between Shades of Grey when I was like twelve, and it wrecked my life. Out of the Easy still remains unread, but when I found out that her new book was coming out....I freaked. Especially after hearing what it was about.
I don't really know what I was expecting. I wanted friendships, prose, fear and sadness. I definitely got it, and still somehow this book blew me away even though everything happened exactly as I expected it to.
This review will be broken up into the usual chunks, but will variate from me and Emma’s thoughts.
-The Characters-
My thoughts:
Books like these rely on you loving the characters. I mean, *SPOILER*, but the Willhelm Gustloff sinks. That event was the worst maritime disaster in history, even worse than the Titantic. So, characters are important.
I never thought I could fall in love with characters on page one. But I did. Each character's voice and personality was so vibrant. The contrast between them was so beautiful to see.
Joana, and her bravery and goodness....but so much grief. Her smile. Her bravery. . And Emelia, that child who persevered even when she looked weak. Her vibrant personality. The struggle.. Trying and trying. Florian, his bitterness and anger, but the tenderness that is shown, the care, and the forgiveness he needs and deserves. And Alfred. His determination, bravado, confusion.....madness. All of them were so brave in their own way. They fit in with the setting, and the wind and sea and I loved them.
Also: The side characters. Oh my goodness. Poet. And every single person you meet. Ruta has mastered the knack of making each character stand out, seem real and different and new.
And I cared.
I will note, that this book is told in very short alternating chapters, which means that for some it might be hard to fully connect. But I still do think these are some of the most well crafted characters, seeing as she had to spend so much time on history and keeping everyone straight but shaped....all in a barely 400 page book.
Emma on characters:
There are four points of view in Salt To The Sea: Joana, Florian, Emilia, and Alfred. It was really interesting to watch the story unfold from the different viewpoints and while in the beginning it was a little confusing to follow, I thought it worked really well.
Salt to the Sea opens up with Joana’s point of view. She’s the same Joana as in Between Shades of Gray, which was really cool. I loved getting to see her story and her point of view. Joana’s also a nurse, which I loved so so so much. Nurses in any capacity during World War II is one of my all-time favorite things to study, ever, and getting to follow Joana and see her struggle through war-torn countries with people who needed were was amazing. Joana is pushing past what you are afraid of to do what you know is right; she is fiercely protecting the ones who need it and holding out your hand to people who can’t stand on their own.
Florian is bitterness and sharp edges and somewhere past all that really caring. I love Florian so much. I will probably say that about everyone, but that’s because it’s true. Florian, though, he has a special place in my heart. He is such an interesting character, and his relationships with everyone else are beautiful. I love how his voice sounded. I love the dynamic between Emilia and him, and I a d o r e Joana and his relationship. In Florian’s POV we also get to see Doctor Lange, and the art that was stolen by the Nazis during World War II. I’ve always found that part of history super interesting so like, reading that made me internally freak out just a little.
Emilia, okay? Can we talk about Emilia? She’s so much younger than everyone else, which really got me, and she is so strong and she’s been through so much. The first thing we see of her is when she is hiding, in the ice and the snow, in her pink woolen cap and it felt so vivid and real. Emilia is so brave. There are so many things about her that I can’t talk about because of spoilers which is sad but. Her story is so heartbreaking and beautiful and g a h. I loved her so so much. Emilia is hope that winter will end, and memories of home, and seeing the worst and the cruelest and the awfullest and then somehow seeing something more.
The last POV in Salt to the Sea is Alfred’s. I…spent most of the book kind of blinking at his POV and trying to figure out what was going on. However. He is a very interesting character. And watching his role in everything coming together at the end was definitely interesting. His point of view was also a complete change of pace; Alfred’s a sailor on the German ship Wilhem Gustloff, a marked difference from every other point of view in this novel. Above everything Alfred wants to be honored and celebrated and be a hero, at least I felt like. Alfred is fear and he’s confusion and wanting to be and belong.
There were also a lot of side characters , all of whom were intricate and interesting. Ruta Sepetys never disappoints with characters. I loved Poet, an old man who was once a shoe maker and whom they now call the Shoe Poet, and Sorry Eva, who has a tendency to say somewhat appalling things but prefaces it with an apology before she does so. There were a lot people who only played a small role and who weren’t even named , and somehow they still felt real. Ruta Sepetys excels at writing these sort of characters; the ones who you can almost believe were real, who are so firmly rooted in their settings and so complexly written their stories don’t feel like stories anymore. There are so many scenes where the crowds of people and families are described in passing and it’s these small little moments and phrases and pictures that bring this story to life.
Overall: amazing, complex characters that each show really unique and interesting parts of history. Although the four different first person points of view are a little confusing, I felt like it was done well and once I got into the book and got to know each character and their voice, that confusion faded.
-Plot and Writing-
My thoughts:
This book is thrilling. It's not a thriller, and they don't even get onto the boat till well to the end, but this book kept me turning pages rapidly. If I hadn't been doing a readalong with Emma I probably would've just finished it in one sitting.
Ruta. Sepetys. Can. Freaking. Write. Her prose is like wading through water. You stub your toe on a rock that stings for a good while, brush into seaweed that snakes around your ankle and you keep going until everything feels numb.
Yes. Wading through water. But ocean water. Because it's salty. FROM YOUR TEARS.
Anyway. I enjoy Ruta's writing a lot. Her pacing and plotting is wonderful, with the flashbacks tastefully thrown in. There are a few nitpickiy scenes that you might have to suspend belief for if you even notice that kind of thing, but who even cares. This was a good book, one that I have tabbed and marked and ready to look back at as a reference for a well paced historical.
Emma on Plot and Writing:
Ruta Sepetys writes and phrases words a certain way, or she describes a certain feeling or picture, and I look at it and it is absolutely beautiful. She somehow combines stunning prose with historical details and creates one massive story that leaves you breathless.
Reading this is intense. Like I said, it’s incredibly immersive, and even though she never goes into gorey details, Ruta Sepetys doesn’t shy away from the darker side of things, and the reality of war. Everything feels very real and very present. If I wasn’t doing a readalong with Mariesa and I also didn’t have to keep stopping said readathon to go do life things, this would have been one of the books that kept me up way too late reading. It would have been one that once I stopped there was no stopping. The way that Salt to the Sea is written keeps you needing to read the next page, needing to know what happens, even though for most of the book, we are just watching a group of people travel to the ship.
(I suppose this next part coulddd be considered a little spoilery, but guys. It’s history. This is like asking people not to spoil Titanic.)
(that was not a good example) (I’m going to stop talking in parentheses now)
Speaking of ships…
Before reading this book, I had never heard of the Wilhem Gustloff. Ever. I didn’t know it existed or what a tragedy it was. I didn’t know it sank.
ANYWAY. Salt To The Sea brings forth the story of the Wilhelm Gustloff, and of the thousands of refugees who sought passage on it to escape the Red army. Because I am me, I went and googled the ship after finishing STTS. I thought that this website was really interesting.
-Messages and other-
My thoughts:
I love history. My mind is forever stuck in the past rather than the present. I love learning about people who lived and breathed just like I do but somehow were so much that they have books about them.
But my favorite part, is wondering about those people who didn't get books written about them. Those people who know one even knows, who get on boats with dreams and hopes, who could've done something so big that they had books and movies centered around them but instead.... they sunk.
That's why I love historical fiction, because it takes these situations, and gives you fictional characters to love but also gets you thinking. Because Joana, Florian, Emelia and Alfred may have all be fictional....but there were people just like them on that boat and they're gone now, and we're left to wonder and dig up their stories.
This is an important book. It's about the things that haunt us, that follow us even in times of danger. I can really appreciate a book that doesn't spend so much describing the brutality of history that it forgets that these characters are still human. They still love and dream and struggle, even in the middle of disaster.
Ruta takes a lighter approach to these tragedies. While they're brutal to read, she doesn't go into so much description of the horror of war that leaves you drained. While there are times for those books, I love hers because they leave more for you to think, to see the times of glory that humans have even surrounded by harsh circumstances.
Emma on messages and other:
Salt to the Sea left me breathless. I read the last page and I didn’t actually do anything; I just sat there and looked at. It was so amazing, and even though I don’t really remember what I was expecting going into it, it was so much more. I adore history and I always have, and historical fiction – stories that take the past and the people who lived in it and bring them to us today, stories who are rooted in our history and teach us about who we are today – are my favorite. Salt To The Sea was all of these things.
Buy this book. Read this book. Read all of Ruta Sepetys’s books, while we’re at it, because Ruta Sepetys, okay. But read this one specifically. This is a story about a lot of ordinary people who saw and experienced things that I can only ever imagine, and it’s a story about their hope. This book is so raw and it hurts but it is hopeful. Everything about it screams that. Hope isn’t always pretty; it doesn’t always look nice. Sometimes hope is a sacrifice; sometimes it hurts. Sometimes hope seems a lot like being naïve or feels a lot like helplessness. Salt To The Sea is light in darkness; life from death; hope from some place that feels absolutely hopeless. There is hope in Joana and hope for Emilia and Florian and Alfred and in the unnamed thousands who died on the Wilhelm Gustloff, because their story is being told, and they are remembered.
What I Took from It.
It's been quite a while since I've read this satisfying of a book. While I can't depict what exactly it is that resonates so well with me, i'm pretty sure that it's the people. The mistakes and love and perseverance that these teenagers show. I have cried for them and laughed for them, and I've loved watching them grow on these pages. This book at it's heart is just the perfect example of what I love about history, and so it will forever be on my favorite shelf, the shelf of books that whispered to my soul in some way.
Humans, no matter how nasty and awful and prejudiced and blind....are capable of doing wonderful things, and books like this one show that in little snippets.
This book is hope and fear and sadness and relationships. With a good dose of realism.
Read it.
To see what Emma took from it, go see her review! Her blog is Here .
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