So, here we go.
I request a lot of ARC's...I mean, free books I get to review? That's enough to get me all hot and bothered no matter what the book title may be.
Sometimes an ARC's will come to me already published and it has yet to be released. If its been published, I don't read any reviews. I want my perspective to be my own, without someone else's views mucking it up.
So I sat down to read The Sea of Tranquility with no idea what it was about, other than the short synopsis that was given by the publisher. My husband sits down next to me....yes, I know I talk about my husband a lot...mostly because I know it annoys him, because I know he doesn't read my blog. So I can say things like "Hey, I said a bunch of stuff about you on my blog today." and he will grit his teeth and look all wigged out but he still won't read it. I think he's scared shitless my blog is nothing but a long list of book characters I'd leave him for. Personally, it makes me laugh. Anyway, side track done. So, he sits down next to me and says "What are you reading now?" and I say "I don't know, some YA ARC called The Sea of Tranquility". If I only knew the mind fuck I was getting myself into. The term "Young Adult" will never be the same for me. The only thing young about this book was the fact that the characters were under the voting age.
The Sea of Tranquility is about Nastya, a girl who was the victim of something no living person should be subjected to, and because of that, she's a completely different person. Determined to remove herself from everyone and anything she loves, she moves in with her aunt and starts over at a new school. After two year, Nastya is very good at pushing people away and keeping her distance. She doesn't switch schools to make new friends or become someone new, she starts a new school to disappear While walking in the quad at lunch during her first week, she notices a boy sitting on a bench, utterly alone. Day after day, no one comes near him and she wonders what he did to earn his very own "dead zone" in the school quad.
"There are two more benches I have to pass to get to the doors, and it's the one on the left that catches my attention. It's empty, save for one boy, sitting right in the middle. It might not seem strange except for the fact that every other bench in this place - in truth every other place where a person could justifiably put their ass - is filled. Yet there is no one sitting on that bench except him. When I look more closely, there's no one even hanging around in the immediate vicinity. It's like there's an invisible force field surrounding this space and he's the only one inside it."
Josh is a boy who keeps to himself, but notices everything. He lost his childhood at a very early age and had to grow up quickly and because of that and everything he lost, his classmates really don't know how to handle him or what to do with him. He's perfectly fine with the separation forced apon him...he has something in his life he's passionate about, and he's rather be doing that than worrying about anyone else's feelings. Caring about someone else's feeling means you will miss them when they're gone.
I have to commend Katja's writing for a minute. There is one huge point in the plot that I completely missed until it's big reveal about thirty pages in. I mean, I seriously had no clue, even though it was plainly there. When she dropped that bomb, I had to scroll back through the book going "no way!". It was brilliant writing. Very rarely, in book, does much get by me anymore. I love when that happens. Being surprised in a book is the ultimate reward.
Usually, in a romance book...boy with baggage meets girl with baggage and they have an instant connection and there you go - Happily Ever After. Or, boy meets girl and they just can't seem to stay away from each other, no matter how hard they try...and then eventually - HEA. THe major similarity is that they are drawn to each other from the beginning. But in the beginning of this book, Nastya and Josh...they couldn't give two shits about each other. That is the depths of their own baggage and internal they both have become. It was a frustrating concept for me to get over. There was no instant connection or spark when they meet. No fireworks or foretelling of things to come. She notices he lives in his own bubble and he notices she dresses like an "undead whore", and that's about it until she goes for a run late night run and gets lost, and so begins the odd relationship of Josh and Nastya.
I had so many emotional extremes in this book. Thirty pages in, I was completely flabbergasted, and in awe or to drop one of my kids favorite Mommy-isms "Say Whaaaa???" (my kids that I'm hilarious) About one-hundred and twenty pages in, I was feeling pretty damn depressed for these two kids...how can they even walk with all that baring down on them? Can I give them a hug? Two hundred pages in, I was smiling like a damn fool and giggling out loud - thank you I needed that. Around the three hundred and fifty mark, I wanted to throw something, anything...can somebody please give me something to throw?! By the end of the book, I was calming down and feeling happier/better/relieved, but exhausted.
Please do not think I didn't love this book, because I did. It was a beautiful love story, and it was probably one of the most real and raw love stories I've ever read which is why I'm feeling so utterly exhausted from it. I seriously did not expect that out of a YA novel. YA novels are usually safe. You can fit them into a neat little box and know what and what not to expect. This book totally shot that theory to hell and it was exhilarating. Thank God there is an author out there that actually realizes teenagers have feeling beyond PG-13.
There were parts of this book I loved. The way Josh and Nastya weave their way into each others lives almost by accident is beautiful. It's almost as if neither of them want it, and hate that they need it, but they do need it, desperately. Also, for being such serious characters with such sad back stories, they were just so damn cute together. Cooking in the kitchen and pennies - great moments. There were also parts of this book I loathed...and hated, and did I mention loathe?? But I respected them. I may have hated reading some of the mistakes made, but ultimately I understand why they had to happen, even if I still want to throw something. :-)
I usually like to include a lot of quotes from the book in my reviews. Personally when I read reviews, quotes are something that can either make or break a book for me. I am purposely not giving many in this review. Why? Because every single one I find will gives away a certain part of the book, and I want the book to be as much as a surprise as it was for me. You can curse me later. :-) But I will leave you one good one as a parting gift.
""I wished my mother was here tonight, which is stupid because it's an impossible wish." He shrugs and turns to me, drowning the smile that cracks me every time. "It's not stupid to want to see her again " "It wasn't so much that I wanted to see her again," he says, looking at me with the depth of more than seventeen years in his eyes. "I wanted her to see you.""
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