A review by lachateau
Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

adventurous emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Will you ever realized, that the history we learned on our school— it has sort kind of beneficial for some parties to published? Or, somehow, will that ever change or will it remain just like another secret swallowed by the war; surrender by the sea with a lot of agony?

It has been the second book of Ruta Sepetys that laid on my bookshelf (after I Must Betray You) and this prove me to say all of her writings are masterpiece. Basically, a historical fiction already can convince me. I, also, have seeking my surroundings about how they talked about this book and recommended me as ‘at least you need to read it once in your life time’ and voila—I probably just found one of my best reading I had this year. 

Writing this review right on Sunday morning since I had my late caffeine intake with my family gathering the other night, so I stayed up all night to finish this book on one sitting that lead me to buried in tears at the end. This story started from four different characters (which is quite new for me, but I just read the other book with five characters so it still makes sense and toleratable). Emilia, a teenage, Polish orphan; Florian, a restoration artist from East Prussia; Joana, a Lithuanian nurse; and Alfred, a Nazi. 

At first it came the a realization that I was quite struggling to notice their characteristics and differentiate them. But as time goes by, I found it very well. The story became more interesting after anti-climax (300th pages and above). Also, as this book was categorized as a young adult, the language usage are so light and insightful— which makes the knowledge and message from this book were easily delivered to the readers. Even so, I highlighted many special phrases or quotes that hit close to home. I probably will give a solid five stars if there were more poetic phrases laid in each page— but it’s still great as it comes!

Salt To The Sea is a book about survival, the loss of everything but we still have something to give (I was shivering while writing this, help), and a light of hope. I believe why this book was talked in almost everywhere since that was how the meaningful and uniqueness of the author deliver are beyond this world, are wider than this sea. I highly recommend you to read it for a bit of knowledge (since the main character are from exactly different backgrounds and purposes of life), sense of belonging and how we— well, basically learn to be grateful to live in this era and can see our family everyday. 

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