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A review by isabellarobinson7
Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys
5.0
Rating: 5 stars
I. Can. Not. Stop. Thinking. About. This. Damn. Book! That, for me, makes it an instant five stars. It says I read it over three days, which I technically did, but I started Salt to the Sea one evening, read 100 or so pages, read some more the following night, kind of lost track of time and finished the book around 1:00 am the next day. So, it's safe to say this book was reeeeeeeeally good.
The chapters were short in Salt to the Sea which for me was great because I can get board really easily, and short chapters made the book all the more entertaining. My favourite character was most definitely Florian, and so it was awesome that I could finish one of his POV chapters and only a few pages later read another.
The writing style was not really anything special for me. Like, on story level and execution of this, Salt to the Sea was up there with The Book Thief by Markus Zusak and All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, but in terms of writing, Ruta Sepetys' style never really lived up to that of these two authors.
I said a similar thing about the writing style about Ruta Sepetys' other book, Between Shades of Gray, but the difference, I feel, between the two was that Between Shades of Gray is told through one narrator alone, whereas Salt to the Sea is told from four. Each narrator in Salt to the Sea had a distinctive voice that differed between them, and also brought a new background to the story that increased the level of representation in the novel. In this different format, Ruta Sepetys' definitely shone more so.
I understand the bar is rather high to begin with, because Markus Zusak is a force to be reckoned with in all literary aspects, and add to that the pressure of doing the global event that was World War II (which all these books center around) justice, there are so many expectations to live up to (for me, anyway) when writing a historical fiction novel in this era. Because of this, I have learned to relax and not judge them as harshly as it would sci-fi or fantasy. So while would have got a lower rating from me if it were another genre, I am willing to look past that purely because of it's historical nature.
I. Can. Not. Stop. Thinking. About. This. Damn. Book! That, for me, makes it an instant five stars. It says I read it over three days, which I technically did, but I started Salt to the Sea one evening, read 100 or so pages, read some more the following night, kind of lost track of time and finished the book around 1:00 am the next day. So, it's safe to say this book was reeeeeeeeally good.
The chapters were short in Salt to the Sea which for me was great because I can get board really easily, and short chapters made the book all the more entertaining. My favourite character was most definitely Florian, and so it was awesome that I could finish one of his POV chapters and only a few pages later read another.
The writing style was not really anything special for me. Like, on story level and execution of this, Salt to the Sea was up there with The Book Thief by Markus Zusak and All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, but in terms of writing, Ruta Sepetys' style never really lived up to that of these two authors.
I said a similar thing about the writing style about Ruta Sepetys' other book, Between Shades of Gray, but the difference, I feel, between the two was that Between Shades of Gray is told through one narrator alone, whereas Salt to the Sea is told from four. Each narrator in Salt to the Sea had a distinctive voice that differed between them, and also brought a new background to the story that increased the level of representation in the novel. In this different format, Ruta Sepetys' definitely shone more so.
I understand the bar is rather high to begin with, because Markus Zusak is a force to be reckoned with in all literary aspects, and add to that the pressure of doing the global event that was World War II (which all these books center around) justice, there are so many expectations to live up to (for me, anyway) when writing a historical fiction novel in this era. Because of this, I have learned to relax and not judge them as harshly as it would sci-fi or fantasy. So while would have got a lower rating from me if it were another genre, I am willing to look past that purely because of it's historical nature.