You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
alysorrow 's review for:
This Raging Sea
by De Elizabeth
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
sad
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
Yes
Within 6 hours of getting my hands on this book, I had started crying on page four (and never fully stopped), full-body-sobbed through the last thirty pages, and then needed 2-3 business days to recover enough to write this review. I was looking through some of my highlights and started crying again. This book is so incredibly beautiful and just hits so hard.
This Raging Sea is lyrical, haunting, and devastating. Set in a coastal New England town the summer after high school graduation, Briar is preparing for her friends to leave her as they go off to school and she stays behind in the town where her twin brother died. But when Finn leaves in a different way- lost in time- she must figure out how to save him with the help of her friends and enemies.
Going into it, I'd been prepared for Briar and Finn's relationship to devastate me, but I wasn't prepared for the power of the other relationships in this book. Right away, the reader isn't just introduced to Briar and Finn, but to their four person friend group on the verge of dispersing, and while the romantic focus is huge, the friendship with Kai and Astrid is just as important. The found family aspect, and the ways it's described and acknowledged, is incredible. And that isn't even touching on the complicated history and relationship between Briar and Morgan.
I also wasn't prepared for the emotional devastation that is Briar Winters. Perfect and anxious and angry, the focus of her family and her high school and her town, but also alone- but also never alone because of the voice in her head and the figure in her reflection- and, of course, her friends. I don't know that I've ever loved and immediately connected to a YA (or maybe any?) protagonist more.
Highlighting and centering the power of stories, songs, and other art forms is one of my favorite tropes but This Raging Sea romanticizes math in a way that I never would have expected to work for me the way that it did. The math and chaos theory and magic systems are all complex but simple and power the story forward and back in a really seamless and beautiful way.
And on top of all of this, the actual reading experience itself is gorgeous as well- the typesetting and chapter headings/illustrations are stunning!
This Raging Sea is easily one of my favorite books of all time and I need everyone to go read it! I will never stop thinking about this book!
Thank you NetGalley and Holiday House for the ARC- all thoughts my own!
This Raging Sea is lyrical, haunting, and devastating. Set in a coastal New England town the summer after high school graduation, Briar is preparing for her friends to leave her as they go off to school and she stays behind in the town where her twin brother died. But when Finn leaves in a different way- lost in time- she must figure out how to save him with the help of her friends and enemies.
Going into it, I'd been prepared for Briar and Finn's relationship to devastate me, but I wasn't prepared for the power of the other relationships in this book. Right away, the reader isn't just introduced to Briar and Finn, but to their four person friend group on the verge of dispersing, and while the romantic focus is huge, the friendship with Kai and Astrid is just as important. The found family aspect, and the ways it's described and acknowledged, is incredible. And that isn't even touching on the complicated history and relationship between Briar and Morgan.
I also wasn't prepared for the emotional devastation that is Briar Winters. Perfect and anxious and angry, the focus of her family and her high school and her town, but also alone- but also never alone because of the voice in her head and the figure in her reflection- and, of course, her friends. I don't know that I've ever loved and immediately connected to a YA (or maybe any?) protagonist more.
Highlighting and centering the power of stories, songs, and other art forms is one of my favorite tropes but This Raging Sea romanticizes math in a way that I never would have expected to work for me the way that it did. The math and chaos theory and magic systems are all complex but simple and power the story forward and back in a really seamless and beautiful way.
And on top of all of this, the actual reading experience itself is gorgeous as well- the typesetting and chapter headings/illustrations are stunning!
This Raging Sea is easily one of my favorite books of all time and I need everyone to go read it! I will never stop thinking about this book!
Thank you NetGalley and Holiday House for the ARC- all thoughts my own!