Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

This is my second Ruta Sepetys novel. I really liked all these characters, well besides Alfred. I do get what she was doing. She was showing how those, who really believed the Nazi philosophy to the core. 

I think that she did a great job with the secondary characters too. I loved them all. My favorite by far, was Emilia. Oh, the shoemaker and all his wisdom. I was devastated when he jumped into the ocean. In this book there are 4 POV’s throughout the book and we flip back and forth to all of them. Every chapter is a different one but chapters are anywhere from 2-4 pages long. This makes for a very fast read.

 To me, the most amazing and phenomenal chapter is when Emilia is dying. She sees her daughter, mother and brother. She’s so happy and realizes that she’s okay. What a beautiful scene to see when you are dying. It made my heart so happy to think that she was so very happy at the end. I think this girl has the most growth and character development, besides maybe Florian. The way she seems so childlike to find out that she’s 8 months pregnant. She tries so hard to believe that it’s her boyfriends and that they love each other, when the truth is more horrific. She then wants nothing to do with the baby but then Florian comes in and saves the day. He restores her hope and in the end she trusts him more than anyone. I really do hope that he did justice to her memory because she is one heck of a person and mother.

 Like I said, this was a quick read. I read it all in one day, in a few hours. The only problem I had was that sometimes I would get lost between the past and present. Sometimes we would just be thrown in the past and I had no idea, until I’m halfway through the chapter. Overall, I really liked this book and you can bet that I did cry at the end. What a tragedy. I just don’t understand how so many people can have so much hate. I feel like this really relates to the world right now and it’s terrifying. The rest of the day, I was in a depressed mood from this book. It amazes me that this is one of the worst losses of life in ship sinking history and I have never heard of it. Ever. The very first I have heard of, Wilhelm Gustlof  is in this book! That just seems crazy to me.