Book Love: The Sea of Tranquility

Staying up too late reading is not a new thing for me.  Every night I try to read 50 pages before turning off my light.  This often has me up past my "bedtime" by maybe by 15-20 minutes.  Nothing too life altering for the next morning.

It's a very small number of books that have kept me up waaaay past my bed time, hours past.  Until recently that list was I Promise and Eleanor and Park.  Both of those were pretty much a "read in one sitting, stay up until 3am to finish" books.  Eleanor and Park even coming when we had a 8 month old who most definitely did not understand sleeping in (not that he does now but at least it's rarely before 8am).

This book, The Sea of Tranquility, has now joined that esteemed list.

I added it to my list after seeing it on Modern Mrs. Darcy under a list of books that were "unputdownable".  She compared it to Eleanor & Park, which you should know by now is a favorite (even if this post is the first time you've heard me mention it...we're already at 3 times...).  I love getting caught up in those types of books from time to time (I mean, for my sanity, relationships with my family, and general house cleanliness, I can't read only those kinds of books.)

This might be one of those books where the less you know going in.  It's about a girl, Nastya, and a boy, Josh.  They are in high school.  They both have had horrible things happen to them before they meet although you don't get the full stories until 3/4 of the way through.  The official description might make it sound a little more melodramatic than it is but it is also about teenagers so a little melodrama might be about right.  

The description wouldn't have gotten me on it's own but with the above mentioned recommendation I picked it up from the library anyways.  Almost returned it only 50 pages in.  I'm really glad I stuck it out.  It maybe could have used a little editing (some parts got a little long) but still at 400+ pages it read pretty quick.  And just know how things are at the beginning of the book aren't how things necessarily keep going.  It gets better.

Also: there is a decent amount of language and these teens are a little...crazier than my teen years.  Just a warning.  It's YA but not just for young adults (and my library didn't categorize it as YA). 

And to be fair, I didn't stay up late to finish this.  I read for 2½ hours one night, until almost 2am and then knew I had to go to sleep, even though it was painful to put down with 60 pages to go.  I finished almost as soon as I woke up the next morning, while Luke and Matt were enjoying some Saturday morning cartoons.  But if I had started earlier I definitely would have finished in one session.

It made me smile, almost cry, and remember my own teenage years of falling in love.  I reread several sections the next day.  It was a great book to get completely caught up in and I'm so glad I picked it up.