Review by juliebeevs_reads - Sea of Tranquility

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juliebeevs_reads 's review for:

Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel

3.5

adventurous hopeful mysterious reflective fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

This was very pleasant to read, but I feel like it was missing something that could have made it greater.

I thought it was very interesting that we don’t get properly introduced to the main character Gaspery (i.e. read his POV) until the middle of the book, and that his POV is presented as both in first and third person forms of storytelling.

I didn’t feel very connected to the characters, possibly because there were multiple POVs. I think I connected most with Olive’s story, but to be fair she also got the most pages apart from Gaspery. By the time you get to the next part of the story you have already forgotten the other characters.

I also found it a bit disappointing that there is a proposed simulation that is disrupted due to the time travel, but there is no breaking of the simulation to see what else is occurring beyond it

There’s a lot of reference to pandemics, and the description of one, and I think this was very much a product of Covid-19. I think the strengths of the novel are the simplicity in which it addresses complex ideas, although I would have liked a bit more world-building.

Content Warnings