Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Was there a time when Young Adult lit was truly only for young adults? I am beginning to think maybe there was but it only lasted five minutes. I've been wowed over the last few years by more YA titles than my chronological age should allow. Ruta Sepetys' page-turner, SALT TO THE SEA, is apparently shelved in YA, though you need to know I read my mother's copy (who is obviously at least two decades older than me!) and she loved this book just as much as I did.

It's a hauntingly evocative, tender, moving, and remarkable story of four young people trying to survive the horrors of WW2. Told in four rotating viewpoints, Sepetys was nevertheless able to create the literary magic that makes the reader very okay with switching from one character's head to another. You know those books with multiple points of view, where you really only care about two of the four and you race to get past the pages of the characters whose stories aren't as compelling? This isn't one of those books.

I am may not be a young adult, but like Ruta Sepetys, I am also drawn to stories of "strength through struggle." Isn't that aptly descriptive of life itself at any age? Some days are easy and a wonderful, some are hard and harrowing -- but all of our days make up our lives and thus make us who we are, at the age we are right now.
Highly recommended.




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