Review: The Sea of Tranquility

Title: The Sea of Tranquility
Author: Katja Millay
Release Date: November 13, 2012
Source: netgalley

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.

Former piano prodigy Nastya Kashnikov wants two things: to get through high school without anyone learning about her past and to make the boy who took everything from her—her identity, her spirit, her will to live—pay.

Josh Bennett’s story is no secret: every person he loves has been taken from his life until, at seventeen years old, there is no one left. Now all he wants is be left alone and people allow it because when your name is synonymous with death, everyone tends to give you your space.

Everyone except Nastya, the mysterious new girl at school who starts showing up and won’t go away until she’s insinuated herself into every aspect of his life. But the more he gets to know her, the more of an enigma she becomes. As their relationship intensifies and the unanswered questions begin to pile up, he starts to wonder if he will ever learn the secrets she’s been hiding—or if he even wants to.

The Sea of Tranquility is a rich, intense, and brilliantly imagined story about a lonely boy, an emotionally fragile girl, and the miracle of second chances.

Nancy’s Review:

I don’t even know how many more times I’m going to say this, but I love miserable characters. A lot. When I first read the summary of The Sea of Tranquility I knew I had to read it. An angry girl that is set on destroying the boy that took everything from her? Love it.

There was so much that I liked about this book. I’ll begin with the characters. They were so well written and real, that I felt like I knew them in real life. I loved them all. Nastya was better than I thought she would be. She changed from who she was at the beginning of the book and opened up as the story moved forward.

The book was told from both her point of view and Josh’s point of view. They were complicated characters with their own issues so the alternating points of view was helpful in understanding Nastya and Josh. Another thing that I really enjoyed was the pacing of the story. Nothing felt rushed and I felt like the relationships were developing at a normal pace, no insta-love or any of that nonsense.

One thing that I was disappointed with was that the boy who ruined Nastya’s life was not involved in the story as much as I expected him to. From the description of the book, it sounded like Nastya would be trying to get her revenge for most of the story, but nothing like that happened. However, I don’t think I would change anything about how the story played out. Though I was expecting something differently, I’m very pleased with what I did get.

I ended up loving The Sea of Tranquility, much more than I thought I would. Despite my confusing at the beginning of the book with not really knowing what was going on, I was quickly sucked into the story. I’m so glad that I read it, because it’s now become one of my favorite books.