Reviews with content warning for Pregnancy - Salt to the Sea

Reviews tagging 'Pregnancy'

Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

56 reviews

aphrochilds's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

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oceanwriter's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

Ruta Sepetys has become one of my favorite historical fiction authors. Her books stand out from others in the genre thanks to the lesser-known/talked about events she chooses to build her plots around.

Joana, Florian, and Emelia narrate their journeys learning up to their departure on the fated Wilhelm Gustloff. In contrast to them is Alfred, a Nazi assigned to the ship. While Alfred’s section of the book is largely focuses on his career and his ‘promised’ future, Joana, Emelia, and Florian’s stories focus on their pasts and hopes of escape.

Despite the extremely short chapters, I found the story was slow to build. Toward the last third, it picked up immensely. The sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff is the worst disaster in maritime history with a death toll nearing 10,000. Ruta Sepetys does a wonderful job of capturing the tragedy. Although the book is about fictional characters, the reader still gets a sense of the individuals who suffered through it.

Compared to The Fountains of Silence and I Must Betray You, it took a significantly longer time for me to get wholly into the plot given how quickly the four POVs jumped around. The lead-in and backstories took up most of the pages. The wait was well worth it even though it's a heartbreaking read.

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romy_elizabeth13's review against another edition

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dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

Okay okay okay. So much to say here. This book absolutely wrecked me. But I loved it.

So at first I was like “this is boring and I don’t like it”. I will admit it has a slow start. However, once you get into it, it becomes one of the most amazing books ever. It has an incredible storyline, amazing cast of characters (well, most of them) and is generally very well written.

This book is narrated by four people:
Joana, a nurse girl who is incredibly caring and persistently pushes through everything. She was probably my favourite character. I also loved seeing her through Florian’s perspective, it was so interesting. She was incredibly relatable and I really did love her. She was also kind of a badass so we love that. I really admired how despite everything she had been through, she never found a reason to be selfish or do anything that was morally wrong even though it might benefit her.

Florian, who is sort of running away ish. It’s kind of complicated but anyway. He was amazing. The second he appeared on the page, I was thinking “hey, you’re gonna be one of those guys who pretends to be all tough and doesn’t care but in reality you do care very much and are so sweet”. I was right. He was so loveable and I really respected how he helped everyone and really came to love everyone. He was also very great at looking after Emilia who saw him as a really brave person and soon came to trust him with her life. There’s so much to say about Florian. I did love him.

Emilia, a girl of fifteen. She struggled with so much and I genuinely felt so sad when I thought of everything she went through. However I absolutely loved her with my whole heart and just admired how brave she was. She really was so persistent and passionate about who she loved. I also found it heartbreaking how her innocence was almost taken from her.

And finally, my least favourite character, Alfred. Oh my gosh, he was the worst — aside from being racist, sexist, homophobic, cruel, completely vile and self centred, he was also so creepy. He generally disgusted me. But oh well.

he dies

The general idea is that all these people start off being completely lost and not knowing what do do, war has completely wrecked their lives. But they all eventually cross paths and (aside from Alfred) all build strong relationships with each other. They need to get on a boat called the Wilhelm Gustloff, a ship which could hopefully get them to freedom and safety. However, unfortunately it is never that simple and the ending of this book was tragic. It was also kind of happy. It was one of those sad/happy endings. I generally loved this book so much and would really recommend it. It also had some great side characters (except Eva, I didn’t like her). It was so compelling and I enjoyed it so much.

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