The Sea of Tranquility Review

Photo Credit: Goodreads.com

Have you ever finished a book and just sat there?  

Have you ever just sat there, staring at the last couple of sentences, or the “The End” centered in the last page before the acknowledgements, and couldn’t even think about moving?  It’s a moment straight out of the stages of grief where you are unconsciously caught in the first stage: denial.  

This story cannot be over.

I think all ride or die book lovers have had one of these moments, so you might understand what I mean when I tell you about one of my very favorite books.  Although there is nothing exceptional about the book on the surface--after all, it is just the story of a “lonely” boy and a “broken” girl trying to figure out who they are alongside each other--after starting and finishing this novel several times, it is hard for me to consider the story any less than exceptional.

Katja Millay’s The Sea of Tranquility is transcendent.  

Millay’s novel tells the resurrection story of Nastya Kashnikov, a former piano prodigy and current (intentional) social outsider due to her tragic past and off-putting exterior, and Josh Bennett, a reluctantly popular boy who forms what Nastya calls a “forcefield” around him after all of his closest family members pass away.

Between the two of them (still in high school), there are heaps of baggage and mountains of secrets that keep them from connecting to the outside world, but they somehow find it possible to find each other in each other.   

It seems necessary to warn potential readers that the book is fairly slow moving, but the journey Nastya and Josh take to the last pages is important enough to warrant the drawn out story.  Life doesn’t tie up situations in sparkling red bows overnight, and neither does Katja Millay.  

It also seems fair to warn readers that the story is messy.  No, not the writing, the story. Nastya’s life was hard--is hard--and she won’t ever be totally clean from what she’s endured.  She’s one of the most interesting characters I’ve ever read because...you’ll see.

I refuse to give too much more away, because I went into the novel fairly blind and can’t imagine a more worthwhile outcome.  

If you’d like to get a little more insight into the novel from a different perspective, Maryse’s Book Blog explores The Sea of Tranquility in a fairly extensive book review that goes much more in-depth and incorporates other readers’ perspectives on the book as well. 

Please feel free to leave a comment below and let me know if you have read this and love it (or hate it) or what you think about the recommendation.  Happy reading!

Motivation Monday

Image Credit: Flickr

Mondays are notoriously the worst.

You've just come back from the weekend and, whether your week entails school or work (or both!), most people aren’t ready to jump back into all of those responsibilities.  Along with these responsibilities comes a whole manilla folder of reasons you think you need to put off reading.

This is where I come in with Motivation Mondays.

Motivation Mondays (should we call them MMs?) will be a new weekly installment along with the posts going up during the rest of the week.  

These posts are going to be for YOU.  Every Monday I will give you a hint into my own struggle with reading motivation and how I escape it in order to keep moving along my list of to-reads.  I may also throw in a new favorite book in there as well!

Today, we are going to talk about worries that reading may be a distraction.  I’m not saying that it isn’t, because without a good dose of time management, it definitely can be.

But it doesn’t have to be.

I know that with school and work taking up the majority of my time, it’s hard to see picking up a new book as worth my (very precious) time.

But, here’s something you might have heard before: reading is good for you.

There are health benefits that you can look into that just might help you get out of that state of mind that reading isn’t the best thing for you. Spending an hour or two of your day reading a book of your choice instead of getting started on that paper that isn’t due for three weeks, may just relieve some of your stress.

So, let’s meet here on Motivation Mondays and remind each other to keep reading!  Let me know what (or who!) your best reading motivator is in the comments.

I’ll be reading. What about you?

Image Credit: Goodreads

Motivation Monday book 1: Ten Tiny Breaths, by K.A. Tucker 

About This Blog

    This blog will be directed towards college students interested in romance novels bordering the Young Adult (YA) and New Adult (NA) spectrum, whether they are interested in getting back into recreational reading or fellow bookworms like me.

   While I would not call myself an expert in the field of YA/NA romances, I have read my fair share of them throughout the years and am constantly picking up a new favorite. I started to get into recreational reading when I was a freshman in high school when my sisters were off doing sports and I wanted something of my own to do outside of school.     

    I can confess that I have put off homework assignments, forgone family dinners, and skipped a few social events because I had wanted to finish a book I was reading.

    As I write and upload more posts for this blog, I intend on writing a couple of in-depth reviews on a couple particularly wonderful books and including a post or two that contain a list of “Top 5” within a more specific category (i.e. dystopian YA/NA romance).  In these Top 5 posts, it would be great if you would like to comment your own personal Top 5.  Who knows, we may have similar picks.
    Along these same lines, I would like to encourage readers to interact in the comments.  Let me know what you think of my choices of feature posts and if you liked them or completely disagreed with my recommendations.  I look forward to seeing those comments and finding new favorites along the way.