Review: The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay

 The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay 

Published: November 13th, 2012
Publisher: Atria Books

Format: E-book, Paperback, Hardcover
Pages: 448(Paperback)
Genre: YA, Romance

Source: Netgalley & bought from B&N

Purchase*: Barnes and Noble/ Amazon

Add on Goodreads

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.

Full of rage and without a purpose, former pianist Nastya Kashnikov wants two things: to get through high school without anyone discovering her past and to make the boy who took everything from her pay.

All 17 year-old Josh Bennett wants is to build furniture and be left alone, and everyone allows it because it’s easier to pretend he doesn’t exist. When your name is synonymous with death, everyone tends to give you your space.

Everyone except Nastya, a hot mess of a girl who starts showing up and won’t go away until she’s insinuated herself into every aspect of his life. The more he gets to know her, the more of a mystery she becomes. As their relationship intensifies and the unanswered questions begin to pile up, he starts to wonder if he may ever learn the secrets she’s been hiding or if he even wants to.

The Sea of Tranquility is a slow-building, character-driven romance about a lonely boy, an emotionally fragile girl, and the miracle of second chances.

Please Note: This book contains mature content including profanity, drug/alcohol use, and sexual situations/language.

  If you enjoy reading YA, you will definitely love The Sea Of Tranquility. I have read so many YA books, but I have never read something quit like this book. The Sea Of Tranquility is such an original and full of emotions, which is equal to being an amazing book unique plot.   The book opens up with a really capturing prologue that forms a lot of questions and also makes you want to keep reading to find out the answers.  

I hate my left hand. I hate to look at it. I hate it when it stutters and trembles and reminds me that my identity is gone. But I look at it anyway; because it also reminds me that I'm going to find the boy who took everything from me. I'm going to kill the boy who killed me, and when I kill him, I'm going to do it with my left hand.

  In the Sea Of Tranquility we meet Nastya, and from the first chapter she really captured me, something horrible has happened to her, which changed her life completely, not only her hand shuttered but also her life. Also Nastya doesn't talk. To anyone. 

Dying really isn't so bad after you've done it once.
And I have.
I'm not afraid of death anymore.
I'm afraid of everything else.

   She is starting out in a new town for her senior year so that she would be able to be someone new. Someone totally opposite from who she really is. She is rather people see her as an outcast than know who she is, know her story and pity her. In the book from the start we don't really know what happened to her, only that in was something bad and because of it she doesn't speak anymore, and it really did add up to a little of mystery and the unfolding of the story. Nastya's character really surprised me, on the outside she might seem as a total badass, but her inner self, really moved me. She is the kind of character that in other books I would have hated, but in this one, I understood her. 

I don’t dress this way because I like it so much or because I want people to stare at me in general. But people are going to stare at me for the wrong reasons anyway, and if they are going to stare at me for the wrong reasons, then at least I should get to pick them.

  While trying to scare everyone away from her, there was one person who she wanted to pull closer, well at first she wanted to know his secret of having so to say an invisible force but than she also wanted to know his story, just as he wanted to know hers. Josh Bennett is a guy who has his own problems, who also as broken as Nastya. Josh is a hard character to not like, because he is the kind of guy who is all mysterious and badass, but on the inside hes protective and caring. To Nastya it seemed like he was the only person who could understand her, even without her talking. 

“We're like mysteries to one another. Maybe if I can solve him and he can solve me, we can explain each other. Maybe that's what I need. Someone to explain me.”

   Josh's and Nastya's relationship wasn't all romance from the very first sight. It was slowly building up from friendship and trust. Although honestly there were moments I wanted to kill Josh and Nastya because of what they did to each other towards the end. I'm not going to spoil anything, you'l have to find out all of their secrets for yourself. 

  There is another important character, Drew who is Josh's best friend. He is the kind of guy that written Playboy all over him. That is what he wants other people to think about him, when in reality he is actually really caring and loyal friend. He is also becoming Nastya's friend throughout the book, with extra flirtation. All of the characters are written so real in a way that makes you think that they actually exist in some outer universe. Even the secondary  characters were well written. 

  Its hard to say a lot about this book without spoiling it. If you like reading YA books with tragic beginning and hopeful end that takes you on a journey full of emotions and surprises  than you would definitely enjoy reading The Sea Of Tranquility by Katja Millay.