Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys Review

  One statement before I start: I. LOVED. THIS. BOOK. So my review may be a little biased towards the good in the story.

(Disclaimer: Apologies if I spell any names wrong, I listened to it on audiobook)

PROS:

*The Characters. Asdfghjkl all of the characters (excluding for Alfred) grew on me throughout the story. Joana + Florian= OTP. They're absolutely adorable. Emelie's storyline was so incredibly sad. I had so much compassion for her, that poor girl. I have no clue how to spell her daughter's name (I listened to an audiobook) but how sacrificial she was for her was heartbreaking in a good way. I loved the somewhat minor characters Eva (I love how she said sorry after or before every 'offensive' thing), the Shoe Poet, Ingrid, and the orphan boy.

*The Storyline. It makes me sad that the core storyline (not the characters obviously) actually happened. This story really opened my eyes to WWII.

*Alfred?? It's not his character itself that got him a place on the pro-and-con list. It is totally for Ms. Sepetys. The way he saw things, the thoughts he had, the general distaste for most of humanity..She wrote him in a way that made me absolutely sick. I applaud you, Ms. Sepetys.

CONS:

*Alfred?? She made me detest him. His thoughts/though process is, again, absolutely sick. (to the people who haven't read this book yet: 1. GO READ IT NOW PLEASE and 2. He's a Nazi.)

*The Writing. Well, some of the writing. For the most part, I liked it, but some of the sentences seemed a tad awkward.

I know this seems like an extremely short and kind of vague list but I can't put in to words how much I loved it. All I can tell you is please go read this. (There is some slightly gory stuff towards the end, comment if you would like specifics. I did not think that it was too bad though.)

I gave this book 5 out of 5 stars.

E.C.