Salt to the Sea Book Review

(4 stars)

Told from the perspective of 4 teenagers aboard the ship Willhelm Gustloff, Ruta Septys holds nothing back in this chilling novel. Although the characters in the book are fictitious, the events that transpire in the novel are very real. Killing an estimated 9,000 people, the Willhelm Gustloff, a German ship, was sunk by a Soviet submarine during WWII. Although the characters have very different backgrounds and identities, they all lose their innocence by witnessing the gruesome horrors of war: “Fate is a hunter. Its barrel pressed against my forehead.”