(I actually searched my blog for this topic and I stumbled upon my entries about when my mom and I went on this epic lighthouse journey in July of 2106 and I almost cried because I haven't seen my mom in so long and I used to go to new places and see people. Feel free to join me in my nostalgia for five years ago when things were simpler and I went to restaurants in Alpena, Michigan.)
Remember how much I waxed on and on about In the Heart of the Sea? I just like to read about maritime adventures (again, I really like them to be focused on the Great Lakes, but I'll read longform articles about the Mary Celeste or what happened to the lighthouse keepers on Eileen Mor). So Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys ended up on my to-read list because I had heard it was about a disaster at sea and Sepetys is a native Michigander. I assumed (incorrectly, as it turns out), that it was a fictional account of a Great Lakes story.
Spoilers galore ahead. You've been warned.
Salt to the Sea tells the story of four different people as they end up on a German ship named the Wilhelm Gustloff in 1945, fleeing from the Soviets. We have Joana, a Lithuanian nurse; Emilia, a Polish girl who is pregnant as a result of a rape by a Russian solider; Florian, a forger whose main allegiance seems to be screwing Adolf Hitler as hard as he can; and Alfred, a truly despicable character who is a bottom-run Nazi sailor. Each chapter switches POV and is brief, from only a couple of paragraphs to maybe six or seven pages.
The first death of the book happens on page six and it doesn't get any easier. It was a tough read. And then? Then you think things are going to be okay because they make it to the Wilhelm Gustloff and then THE SHIP IS TORPEDOED. I knew this book was about a disaster, there's even a picture of a empty ring buoy on the cover of the ship, but I was still UTTERLY SHOCKED.
The sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff is real, my friends. This is a fictional account and Sepetys did such a good job of immersing me in the innocence of the characters that I didn't even see it coming. No one knows how many people died on board, but a conservative estimate is that more than 9,000 souls perished in the tragedy, making it more deaths than the Titanic and Lusitania combined by an order of magnitude.
Anyway. This book is incredibly heart wrenching, but it's also incredibly well done. Also, I will not be getting on any boats in frigid winter temperatures any time soon. So, right after you're done rereading In the Heart of the Sea, read this book. It's worth it.
Notable lines:
"She was quite pretty and smelled like fresh eggs..." (page 7) - What? How is this a compliment? I mean, I guess it's better to smell like fresh eggs instead of rotten ones, but...
"I had been assigned to the Gustloff's enclosed sundeck for the day. It was being outfitted as a maternity ward. How inconvenient for women to become pregnant during a war. Quite thoughtless of them." (page 144) - This is just an example of how Sepetys is able to write how horrible Alfred is without writing "Alfred was a lazy, no account, mean-spirited Nazi." I mean, just brilliant.
"The woman in the mirror was frightening, especially when I realized that she was me...I scrubbed at the dried blood and grime beneath my fingernails, thinking of the remorse I would never be able to wash down a sink." (page 223) - I frequently find myself staring at my image in the mirror while I'm brushing my teeth, wondering how I became the person standing there.
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