Book Review: Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys (2016)

This new book by Sepetys is a story as richly told as her book Between Shades of Gray. The author creates characters to make us aware of the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff. The ship tells of the greatest maritime disaster in history--a little known event near the end of WWII. The ship carrying over 10,000 refugees was sunk by a Soviet submarine in January of 1945. About 9,343 evacuees were lost, with only about 1,252 survivors. Sepetys' characters from a variety of backgrounds (a nurse, a German art forger, an old shoemaker, a pregnant teen who was a victim of the Russians, and more) meet along the way and end up looking out for one another. They don't all survive but the author brings the book to an ultimately satisfying conclusion. Recommended!