Review: Sea (Kling)

Title: Sea

Author: Kling
Genre: Fiction, Survival, Romance
Pages: 336
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Sienna Jones is known as Sea to her friends and family because of her love of the ocean and surfing.  Unfortunately, Sea doesn't go in the water any more because the plane her mother was flying crashed into the Indian Ocean and there were no survivors.  Sea doesn't do a lot of the things she used to because she is haunted by horrible nightmares of her mother's death.

But now, six months after the 2004 tsunami that devasted SE Asia, Sea has the opportunity to travel with her father to help survivors.  Sea reluctantly agrees to join the team.  In an Indonesian orphanage, she meets Deni, a scarred orphan young man who is more like Sea than anyone she has ever met.  She feels an instant connection to Deni and cannot stay away from him.  But what about her best friend/boy friend back home? 



I am a little late to the "love" party for this book.  (I actually read it right before school started, but am a little behind in my reviews).  This is a powerful debut novel that is equal parts adventure, survival, and romance.  It will make you sad, but it will also leave you hopeful.  Sea is a character that I know many of my readers will relate to...you can understand where she is coming from, and will root for her to get to where she needs to be. 

On Goodreads.com (which I use to track my reading/ratings), the author has posted this about her book:
"5 stars!
What I Learned From This Book:
1. A book takes a long time to write.
2. Most of writing is revising.
3. I'm grateful and happy I have a book coming out.
4. I hope people like it.
My rating system: A star for each year I worked on SEA: 2005-2010. =)"

8th graders: Don't be surprised to see this as part of the upcoming "Survival Stories" project in Language Arts.  This is a must read!