Just-Finished-Review: The Sea of Tranquility, by Katja Millay

Release date: June 4, 2013
Publisher: Atria Books
Format: Paperback, 448 pages

Goodreads description:
I live in a world without magic or miracles. A place where there are no clairvoyants or shapeshifters, no angels or superhuman boys to save you. A place where people die and music disintegrates and things suck. I am pressed so hard against the earth by the weight of reality that some days I wonder how I am still able to lift my feet to walk.

Full of rage and without a purpose, former pianist Nastya Kashnikov wants two things: to get through high school without anyone discovering her past and to make the boy who took everything from her pay.

All 17 year-old Josh Bennett wants is to build furniture and be left alone, and everyone allows it because it’s easier to pretend he doesn’t exist. When your name is synonymous with death, everyone tends to give you your space.

Everyone except Nastya, a hot mess of a girl who starts showing up and won’t go away until she’s insinuated herself into every aspect of his life. The more he gets to know her, the more of a mystery she becomes. As their relationship intensifies and the unanswered questions begin to pile up, he starts to wonder if he may ever learn the secrets she’s been hiding or if he even wants to.

The Sea of Tranquility is a slow-building, character-driven romance about a lonely boy, an emotionally fragile girl, and the miracle of second chances.

Please Note: This book contains mature content including profanity, drug/alcohol use, and sexual situations/language.

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The following review is based on a copy I got from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion.


Review:
The Sea of Tranquility is one of those books everyone tells you to read because of how amazing it is. You go in expecting it to be great… but you have no way of knowing just how painfully real, how delicate, how brutal, how deeply affecting a story you are about to be swept into. I think there is no way to read this book and not be in some way changed by it. I know that the characters and what they faced will stay with me for a very long time, and that my mind and heart are the richer for it.

The most amazing thing about this book are the characters. I have never met two fictional people like Nastya and Josh. I know that many contemporary YA and NA books focus on characters that are in some way ‘broken’, but any that I’ve read of so far pale in comparison. Josh and Nastya are not just a series of traits or letters on a page, they become people. There is nothing shallow, nothing fabricated or melodramatic about them. They are complex, and strong, and shattered, and no longer believe that anything will ever be okay. And once you start to learn about what they’ve been through, you can’t blame them. My heart broke for their pain, their grief, their anger.

The story is told alternately from Nastya and Josh’s point of view, and I loved the chance to see into both of their heads! Their voices are so strong and basically leapt off the page from the very beginning. Nastya enters a new school in a new town where she now lives with her aunt after leaving her family behind. She has not spoken a word in over a year. She wants to be left alone. Josh already is alone, because everyone gives him a berth and no one knows how to deal with him. He doesn’t talk much either and never asks Nastya any questions, which is part of why they start spending time together after a chance-encounter.

I loved seeing them grow closer. There was nothing rushed, nothing forced about it. No talk of love after only weeks of knowing one another. I even would have been content if there’d been no romance at all, because the connection between them and their interactions were enough – which is not to say I didn’t root for the two of them to become a couple!

The minor characters are also amazing. There is so much more to them than I initially expected, especially Drew, Josh’s only friend who also grows close to Nastya. I never imagined him to have as much depth but it made me like him a lot more.

Another character I really liked is Clay, a talented artist. I generally love how important creative expression (or lack thereof) is in the story! It’s not just something cool to add to the people, it’s part of who they are and how they view and deal with the world around them.

Despite how bleak and painful the story may sound at this point, it also made me laugh quite a lot! The dialogue is awesome, both the spoken conversations and the things Nastya and Josh think but don’t say out loud. Both have a no-nonsense attitude and call things how they are. I also really like how openly the book treats questions of sexuality, drinking, and being confronted with things you aren’t ready for.

The pace is slow-building in the beginning, but I never wanted it to move faster because it never bored or bothered me. This isn’t an action-focused story, it’s about the inner journey of the characters and their changes. It needs time to grow, or it would not be believable. There are peaks of high emotion and drama, but never anything annoying or over the top. Katja Millay is also wonderful at spreading out information without ever revealing too much. Despite seeing into both Josh and Nastya’s heads, it’s a long time before there is any clarity to what precisely happened to her, and the reveal, once it comes, was very different from how I expected it to go down!

I don’t really know what else to say because I don’t want to give anything away, and the beauty and power of The Sea of Tranquility is in the details. In the things that go unsaid. In events for which there are no adequate words. This is a story about hope and despair, about choices, about hoping for second chances but not daring to, about anger and hatred and the wish for revenge. About fear, and how it might be overcome. About healing. About wondering whether one even deserves to heal, or be happy. It’s about how our expectations shape the world, and about how nothing is ever simple or black-and-white. It’s angsty. It’s powerful. It’s so compelling you will not want to put it down. It will make you feel the full range of emotions without being tear-jerky, without you feeling manipulated into feeling anything. It’s a story I will re-read because I know there are so many hints I will pick up on that I could not know about the first time around. I would not change a single word in it. I don’t have the right words to talk about it. So do yourself a favor and just go read it – it will be time well spent!

I only just finished reading this book and maybe I should have waited a bit longer with writing the review to better digest the story. There are a lot of things I haven't touched on in the review. But I just needed to voice my thoughts somehow! Have any of your read it yet? What did you think? Or if you haven't, what intrigues you about it? I'd love to hear your opinions in the comments :)

Top Ten Tuesday: books dealing with tough subjects

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. Every week the participants post their top ten to a specific topic.


To this week's topic is all about books dealing with difficult subjects like abuse, suicide, grief, or other issues that are personally hard for us.
It was kind of difficult to come up with 10 books for this that I've actualy read. I'm not usually one for 'problem books' because I identify way too much and it drags me down. Also, I realized that I could name quite a few books that have an issue woven into them somewhere but it isn't the main focus. So here are 10 books of varying intensity that I read and enjoyed.

The Language of Flowers, by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
This was the first contemporary book I'd read in a looong time. I mainly picked it up because it was set in San Francisco and because the heroine was a foster kid. And there we're also already at one of the issues the book deals with. Victoria is a heroine that is hard to understand at the beginning, but the unfolding tale is wonderful, heartbreaking, and beautifully written. One of the things that happen to her is among my big no-nos when it comes to choosing my reads but it was handled wonderfully here! It's about homelessness, not belonging, grief, mother-daughter relationships, loss, love... and it left me with this feeling of catharsis. I cried, but I felt better at the end.


Pushing The Limits, by Katie McGarry
I know a lot of people would probably classify this book as romance but I think it also handles tough issues like grief (Echo's brother), mental illness, trauma, and the foster system. It makes the characters' pain real. It made me laugh and cry and swoon and get angry. I loved it so much even though emotionally it got heavy at times, for me at least. You can check out my review here.


Girls Love Travis Walker, by Anne Pfeffer
I *just* finished that one and really loved it! Travis is a guy with real-life problems. Having to drop school in order to support himself and his sick mum, the threat of eviction hanging over his head, knowing that the 5 dollars in you pockets are all the money you own in the world... he took quite a heavy fall but I liked how much of a backbone he had, and there were lighthearted scenes to balance things out.


The Breakaway / Pieces, by Michelle Davidson Argyle
I was part of the tour for these two and they had such a huge impact on me! Naomi's mental situation and the way she dealt with her kidnapping (and the aftermath!) were so real to me. I felt with her. I ached and hoped for her. It's also a book about finding your own way though, and about several types of dependent relationships. If you want to know more, check out my review.


Notes from the Blender, by Trish Cook and Brendan Halpin
Notes from the blender is an extremely fun read, but it also deals with issues about patchwork families, grief, guilt, and finding out where you belong. I devoured it in a day. Definitely one of my favorite contemporaries!


Hunger, by Jackie Morse Kessler
This one was personally hard for me to read. It deals with anorexia and bulimia and the physical, emotional, and social consequences that come with it. It's all wrapped up in the paranormal element of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse but the describtion of Lisabeth's situation hit very close to home for me. I really want to read the next books in the series!


Wintergirls, by Laurie Halse Anderson
Same as above, only more extreme. My experiences thankfully never went as far as that of Lia, the heroine, but I still saw more of myself at a certain point in my life in her than I would have liked. This one packs a real punch but it handles the issue really well, in my opinion. If you know someone suffering through the hell of anorexia and want to understand them better, this book might help.


Ultraviolet, by R.J. Anderson
This is eventually a paranormal book but it also deals with mental illness, being committed against one's will, asylums in general, and several kinds of abuse. I was glued to the page and need to read the sequel, Quicksilver, asap!


In the Shadow of Blackbirds, by Cat Winters
This one is set in 1918 during the Spanish Influenza. The description of a city filling up with corpses, the horrors of WWI, the grief of those mourning both the sick and the fallen soldiers of the war, was palpable to me. It also deals with the fear and paranoia of treason, with women's lot in the early 20th century, and with ghosts. Oh, and it's simply brilliant :)


Carrie, by Stephen King
I know many would probably classify this one as horror but for me, it's so much more and else than that. I was 16 when I read it for the first time and I identified with Carrie so much! Like her, I'd been bullied for years on end. I didn't have a religiously crazy mother to deal with like she did, but otherwise she basically got to do what I'd dreamed about quite a few times: revenge. With telekinetic powers.



This is it... I think I got in quite a few different ones. I also have a bunch of books dealing with tough issues on my kindle that I haven't read yet. What do you guys think of my list? Do you know any of the books? I'm also curious about everyone else's picks, so link me up :)