Today for the blogging extravaganza, I will be pitching a book! I'm going to be pitching my favorite 2016 book so far: Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys!
BUUUUYYY MEEEE:
Oh. My. Word. This book is so amazing! I can't even get over how much I love love loved this book!!!
Do you like historical fiction?
This book is set in WWII Prussia. The Russian Army is advancing and refugees from all over are fleeing to a group of ships, hoping for passage to unoccupied Germany. Ten thousand people pile onto the doomed Wilhelm Gustloff hoping to head to safety.
I had never heard of the events of this book before. Which is SO surprising because it's about the worst maritime disaster in ALL OF HISTORY! More people died in this tragedy than the Titanic and the Lusitania combined! I have spent HOURS looking up information on this since I finished reading the book.
There is another WWII event mentioned in this book that I had never heard of before, a massacre. I looked that up too and that is just AWFUL!
Do you like feels?
This book obviously ends in some tragedy. A book about the world's deadliest shipwreck is definitely going to end in death, tragedy, and tears. I can attest that you will get the feels if you read this book. I would have tissues handy.
Do you like short chapters?
I don't know if I would normally find this to be a thing worth mentioning, but I think it's nice for this book! If you are someone who tends to read til you can barely keep your eyes open, but also don't like to quit in the middle of a chapter, this will work nicely for you.
Do you like multiple POVs?
This book has 4 points of view. This isn't something I really care for, combined with the short chapters, I thought that I was going to have trouble connecting with this book. But oh boy was I wrong.
The characters are great. The story follows a Lithuanian girl, a German boy, a Polish girl, and a Nazi soldier. I looooved the Polish girl! She was, by far, my favorite character. The events of this book are not good to her, but she is so strong and she pulls through everything.
I didn't care for the Nazi guy. Besides the fact that he's just icky, he's weird. His point of view had me going from ew, he's weird, to maybe he's misunderstood (NOT about the fact that he's a Nazi, the things going on in his flashbacks to his life before the war). But I definitely settled on weird and icky for him. He was almost cringe-worthy to read about because his POV is like 75% letters he's writing in his head to his 'sweetheart' back home that are so far from the truth that it is almost painful to read.
There are several other important characters in the book, who are all just wonderful. They're all so interesting and I want to hug them all.
This book is a captivating historical story full of hopefulness and heartache and is so so so worth the read! And look at that lovely cover!! I don't know what more I can tell you. If I was someone else reading this post, I would have been hooked at the history lesson.
So, tell me, have I talked you into reading this one???
