Book Review: The Sea Of Tranquility by Katja Millay

December 29, 2019

So, I was a little skeptical about this book. I wasn’t so sure I would love another teen drama romance story done in a slightly different way. If I’m going to be reading a teen romance novel it at least needs to be post apocalyptic or something interesting like that. But this book was really good.

The story starts out by meeting this girl named Nastya as she is transferring schools. She tries to put off a don’t mess with me kind of vibe by wearing dark make up and clothes, but there are a handful of people who see through it right away. Josh Bennett is one of them. Josh also has a don’t mess with me vibe to him, but not because he put it there, but because everyone is kind of afraid to get close to him. He calls it his “dead zone” because everyone who he’s close to dies. All of his immediate family has been gone for a while and his grandparents have since passed as well, leaving him with nothing.

I expected this book to be like a lot of the other teen books that feel like they need to sensor themselves. I expected it to be sugar coated and wrapped in bubble wrap so that none of the sharp edges would really poke out that much. But I was happily mistaken.

This book was heartbreaking and beautiful and raw. It was a love story between a boy and a girl, but also between a mother and a daughter, and aunt and a niece, a boy and his long friendship, a boy and his new friendship, a mother and son, and what makes you family isn’t always blood.

There wasn’t a sharp twist at the end, but little nuggets throughout. It was a story of family and friendship and coming of age and mistakes that can’t be taken back. It is about forgiveness and healing and forgetting and remembering. I couldn’t put the book down.