JSEC Book Review: “Salt to the Sea” by Ruta Sepety

      Review by:  Shaila Lopez & Fathia Obabiyi  

-Shaila’s Review-

The book is based in 1945 during World War II  Nazis vs Poland and Russia.  People were fleeing the countries of Lithuania, Poland, East Prussia, and many more attempting to take cover from the war torn territories.   Boys as young as 13 years old were joining the soldiers to take on the fight.

There are 4 main characters: Florian, Emilia, Alfred, and Joanna, who have joined together.  Alfred was my favorite character,  he is  very independent and makes the book even more exciting. He is a lone-wolf like character.   This book is based upon the the events of the Gusloff Ship that sank in 1945.  The main goal of the alliance was to save their lives from the Hitlers War Counsel.  If I were to rate this book I would give it a 10 out of 10.

Not only am I a fan of this book but also of Mr. Q’s book club.  The Book Club is about reading a book we choose together and discuss what happens and we get to discuss our favorite scenes in the book.  The Juanita Sanchez Book Club members include:  Mr. Quesnel, Ms. Knapp, Lina, Renny, Shaila, Fathia, and Mr. Tien, the Librarian from the South Providence Library.

The book, “Salt to the Sea” is a very interesting book to read, I am going to try not to be a spoiler by not telling what the outcome of the book is but I will say am highly recommending this book highly to JSEC students.  The book setting is in World War II Germany where 4 characters have secrets.  Joanna, Alfred, Emilia, and Florian are the main characters who are trying to escape from the Russians who invaded East Prussia by taking a German ship called the Wihelm Gusloff.

The reason why I loved this book so much is it talks about innocent people who suffered and detailed their struggle to survive the war rather than focus on the people who caused the war.  If I were to rate this book with 1 equaling close to bad and 10 equaling being close to extremely wonderful,  then I would give it a rating of a solid 10.

-Fathia’s Review-

The Author, Ruta Sepety who is a master of historical fiction, showed the hard truths by writing intimately with her storytelling.   Her warm characters breathe  new life into one of the worlds most terrible and neglected tragedies.  This book brings vivid life into that a horrible war that will go down in history as being one of the worst wars ever to be fought.  I look forward to reading more of this author’s work.