(Historical Fiction, YA, Romance)

Salt to the Sea, written by well-known Young Adult author Ruta Sepetys, is an award-winning book, filled with romance, sad stories, and everything in between. It is is the #1 New York Times bestseller and winner of the Carnegie Medal, and with Sepetys’s talent, it is definitely deserving of that award.

Set in the winter of 1945, Salt to the Sea introduces four young adults: Joana, a Lithuanian nurse with a secret; Florian, a young Prussian man with a secret; Emilia, a Polish girl with a secret; and Alfred, a German sailor who has no deep dark secret but longs for power.

Joana, a nurse, is traveling with some acquaintances she met when she was making her way to the Wilhelm Gustloff, a large German ship. Along the way, she meets Florian and Emilia. The Prussian and Polish girl had been introduced when Florian saved the girl from a German.

When traveling to the Wilhelm, Joana loses friends, but finds herself falling in love with the mysterious Prussian. Emilia continues to rely and depend on Florian ever since the day he rescued her. Upon reaching the ship, Joana is seperated from the group to be a nurse on the ship, where she meets Alfred. Alfred cannot keep his eyes off of Joana and does everything he can to be in her presence and to woo her.

Posing as a Latvian woman (because the Germans hated Poles), Emilia makes her way back to Joana on the ship, and Florian deceives Alfred into thinking that he (Alfred) would be receiving a medal for his hard work for the Reich.

When the ship goes underway, everything seems all right until the ship is shaken by large and loud booms from the bottom of the boat. They are from torpedoes. Rushing to move everybody off of the Wilhelm Gustloff and into lifeboats, all the crew members are in a hurry. Alfred tries to get himself into a lifeboat, while Emilia sacrifices herself to let a little boy take her place. Florian and Joana, along with Emilia’s baby, and the little boy, are in a life boat together with no sign of Emilia.

*Major Spoiler Alert!*

Emilia, who had been thrown off the ship onto a raft, is with Alfred. He is slowly losing his mind. Emilia accidentally speaks Polish, which sets Alfred off as he realizes that she is his enemy. He attempts to kill her, but because of his injuries, he dies shortly after. Emilia freezes to death after hours of sitting in the cold, getting wet, and the wind.

Years later, Florian and Joana get married and live in the United States. They adopt Emilia’s baby, Halinka, the little boy, Klaus, and have a child of their own.

This book is fabulous. I love Ruta Sepetys’s books and writing style, and she makes you feel and love and know the characters so so well. When I finish her books, I love it, because it was amazing, but at the same time I hate it, because I was really enjoying it. But they never get old and are always my go-to books.

Salt to the Sea is very sad. Especially in the sense that this stuff actually happened, and it’s not just fiction. But, there is also a good amount of romance between Joana and Florian, and anybody who reads this book will come to love Florian as much as I have. (Which is a lot.) Historically, this book is fantastic! In the back of the book, Ruta Sepetys actually has interviews with Wilhelm Gustloff survivors, experts, and deep sea divers who have seen it for themselves. She is top-notch when it comes to historical fiction.