Thursday, March 21, 2013

Book Review: The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay





Title: The Sea of Tranquility
Author: Katja Millay
# Of Pages: 448
Publisher: Atria Books
Publication Date: June 4th 2013
Source: NetGalley
Level: Young Adult
Rating: 2 Hearts





Synopsis

(From Amazon.com)

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.

My Verdict

While this story was very unique, mysterious, and occasionally sweet, the bad outweighed the good for me.

The story is told from alternating points of view; Nastya and Josh. Nastya survived a traumatic experience when she was fifteen that took away the one thing she loved most in life, her ability to play piano. Now, three years later she is still consumed by fear, anger, and hatred for what happened to her. It takes awhile for us to figure out what happened in Nastya’s past. We get small snippets here and there until the full story comes out at the end. I really couldn’t understand Nastya’s mindset most of the time. She didn’t respect herself at all and was so self-destructive it was painful to watch.

Then we have Josh, another person who’s past is full of pain and loss. New to school, Nastya tries her hardest to push everyone away, but there is something about Josh that draws her in. The two start to form this odd relationship that goes from hate, dislike, like, to love. I didn’t really love Josh either. I liked him most of the time but then he would do something stupid and really bug me.  He was also pretty self-destructive, not letting anyone into his life who he could later lose, because inevitably that’s what always happened.

My main issue with this book was the swearing and sexual comments every two seconds. There were more F-words in this book than I’ve probably heard in my entire life, and the disgusting sexual “jokes” they were constantly making were not funny. Had these two aspects not been so prevalent, I would have enjoyed this story a lot more!

Overall, this just wasn’t the right book for me.  

9 comments:

  1. Aww, I'm sorry this one didn't work for you. :( I really loved it. I hope you find something good to pick you up!

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    1. Your wonderful review is actually what made me want to read this one. It wasn't right for me but I know I'm in the minority. Thanks, I hope the next book I read is extra awesome =)

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  2. I'm sorry that you didn't enjoy this book, Amanda! >.< I heard many amazing things about this book and put much hopes in this book, but you just reminded me not to put too much hope! The sexual jokes and the swearing in every page might turn me off as well. Thank you for your honest review, hun! I hope you'll read a book you like more soon! <3

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    1. Books never live up to your expectations of them if your expectations are too high. Now that I've knocked down your hopes maybe you'll enjoy it better, hahaa ;)

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  3. Too bad you didn't like it. I've read one or two reviews that praised it and really wanted to read it some time. Guess I will see how I feel about it. Hope you love your next read. Thanks for the review.

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    1. I've read many rave reviews on this one too, I'm definitely in the minority as someone who didn't enjoy it. If you do read it I hope you like it more than me!!!

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  4. The Synopsis about the book sounds very intriguing. Thought you were really going to be excited about this book. Don't like lots of profanity, but sometimes it fits the story.

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    1. The synopsis is very intriguing and I agree that sometimes profanity fits in a story, I just don't usually like those stories.

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  5. Oh dang. I have read a lot of really good reviews for this one but your negatives are things that would bother me too. However I'm not sure if it would ruin the story, I can usually overlook some of that stuff. I don't plan on reading it soon, but one day I hope to get to it.

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