Beautiful and eloquent writing. Wonderful historical fiction based on the factual demise of the German ship, Wilhelm Gustloff.

Emotional story of four teen refugees during WWII

This book is set in the winter of 1945 during World War II and follows four refugees who are seeking to escape and end up on the Wilhelm Gustloff. The William Gustloff was an actual ship during WWII and is a part of a tragedy that was 6 times more deadly than the Titanic. I love how reading this fiction book inspired me to research what actually happened on the William Gustloff. I highly recommend this book.

This is an amazing book, and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes War, Romance and Historical fiction-like books. Reminds me of the Titanic, which, for the record, is one of the saddest and best movies I have ever seen.

This book is about a group of strangers who become good friends and struggle to make it to a safer land without being caught in the middle of the war. A must read!

What would you do if you were stuck working with an enemy?

Check out my review of "Salt to the Sea" on my blog at:
http://axarr.blogspot.com/2016/08/review-wednesday-salt-to-sea-by-ruta.html

An excellent historical novel for YA. The author retells the personal history of many citizens catch up in the tragedies of WW11 through her wonderful selection of characters. Readers of all ages will want to know what happens to the 4 main characters of this well-written novel.

Short chapters (only 1-4 pages long) keep the story moving quickly, watching from the viewpoints of four young protagonists--a Lithuanian nurse with a guilty conscience, a Polish teenager hiding a secret, an evasive Prussian with false papers, and a low-ranking German sailor--as they try to escape the Soviet advance in 1945 and move towards what will be the greatest naval disaster in history. A moving account of ordinary people's experiences in wartime and the struggle for survival. The afterword includes an interesting list of books that the author used for research and inspiration.

This book read a lot like a Titanic survival story, maybe an I Survived read for an older audience. The first half of the book was a bit hard to keep track of as each chapter was narrated by a different character, but as you kept reading, how they connected to one another was made clearer. The second half of the book was a page turning, riveting thriller as each character has to decide whether they could trust one another as tragedy loomed near aboard the ship.

This was an interesting and educational novel. Throughout I found the supporting characters to be infinitely more interesting than the main characters through the Shoe Poet, the Wandering Boy, Ingrid, and Eva. I could have happily gone without Florian's story entirely, and the book would have been significantly better without the ideas of romance. Otherwise, it was an emotional and well-written story I could see myself revisiting.