reblogbookclub

[reblogbookclub]

Official Selections of the Reblog Book Club so far!

See all posts: Fangirl by rainbowrowell The Impossible Knife of Memory by lauriehalseanderson California by italicsmine Brown Girl Dreaming by jacquelinewoodson Vivian Apple at the End of the World by katiecoyle All The Rage by summerscourtney Saint Mazie by jamiatt Salt to The Sea by @rutasepetysauthor

[reblogbookclub]

Dear Reblog Book Club,

Of all the things I’ve done in my time at Tumblr, you guys are my heart. Thank you for being brilliant, thoughtful, kind, creative, generous, talented, curious, and joyful. Please keep sharing books with me and with each other.

Perhaps the book club will reemerge here under new leadership; perhaps it is all in your hands now. I think we’re gonna make it either way...

Gratefully, @rachelfershleiser

Dear Tumblr,

After four and a half years here as your @books and @reblogbookclub friend and guide, I’m taking an unmissable opportunity at @hmhbooks and moving on. I’m immensely grateful for everyone I’ve met and worked with and read on my Tumblr dash and IRL, and I hope you’ll all stay in touch.

I’ll still be here, of course, same book time, same book channel, and on twitter, instagram, and tinyletter.

Love you so! - Rachel

[reblogbookclub]

Every nation has hidden history, countless stories preserved only by those who experienced them. Stories of war are often read and discussed worldwide by readers whose nations stood on opposite sides during battle. History divided us, but through reading we can be united in story, study, and remembrance. Books join us together as a global reading community, but more important, a global human community striving to learn from the past.

Salt to the Sea, Ruta Sepetys (383)

This quote really summed up my feelings towards the story. I felt connected to the characters, the time period, and the loss.  

(via teaching-everydayisdifferent)

[reblogbookclub]

Okay, Analyze This Character open thread #2!

Florian: GO!

[reblogbookclub]

“Some people ask me, ‘Well, why write these obscure stories? Is hidden history even important?’

Yes. I maintain it is important because during my research in museums, I found bottles that contained messages that were thrown overboard from some of these refugee ships. And that told me that these souls were desperate for someone–anyone–to know their story.

You are that someone.

We know the villains’ names. We teach the villains’ names but we don’t know the victims’ names.

Nine thousand three hundred and forty-three people perished on the Wilhelm Gustloff. Each one had a story.

Lift their bottles from the water.

Please give them a voice.“

————————————

Salt to the Sea is such a good eye-opening book. And after a lot of year loving historical fiction, I finally realized why I hated History back when I was in highschool and yet loved reading historical fiction.

It’s all about how the story unfolds.

In class, it’s all ‘this happened’ ‘that happened’. It was always about who won and who lost, who were the leaders, who were the important persons. But in novels like this one, we get a real feel of what was actually happening, even though the characters involved are fictional. It’s about all the other unknown people who were caught up in such tragic events that they had no way of controlling.

[reblogbookclub]

This abandoned hat in the gutter is giving me all sorts of Emilia feels!

[reblogbookclub]

Love this restrained take from Katie.

Was putting off finishing Salt to the Sea because I knew it was about to get sad and FUCK DID IT EVER. Also, way to be ALFRED. A DOUCHE TO THE END. Seriously? He stole a woman’s coat and a dead child’s life vest? What a fuckity fucking scum fuck. I haven’t despised a character this much in a long long time.

[reblogbookclub]

Okay, Analyze This Character open thread #2! Florian: GO!

[reblogbookclub]

More Alfred Thoughts:

@pobatz:

I had basically the same feeling about Alfred. The way he is presented turns his actions and his beliefs into a part of a bigger logic that seemed, in my opinion, to be based on low self esteem and a desperate yearning for recognition. I can understand how one thing led to the other and how he eventually ended up being the cruel and cold hearted person we meet in the novel.

However , as already mentioned, this does not excuse his actions. It also didn’t make him more likeable to me. In fact, I think that sympathy is not the goal in presenting the logic behind Alfred’s hatred. To me this seemed to be Ruta’s way of emphasising how the dynamics of such a hateful worldview, like the one the Nazis promoted, traps the weak and the oppressed (such as Alfred) into thinking they hold the power. Alfred adapts the Nazi worldview and focuses so much on hating and oppressing others in order to feel better about himself, that he does not see how everyone suffers under this regime.

Does that make sense?

@specialedition87:

“Fedora-wearing nice guy” is an almost perfect description of Alfred; I really can’t remember the last time I disliked a character this much. Yes, perhaps there’s an empathetic history where he was made fun of and picked on, but hey, so were a lot of people and they didn’t become self-centered Nazis. That’s what irks me the most about Alfred: how utterly selfish he is, in the true sense of the word. Everything is about him and all of his decisions are driven by making himself feel more important; even the letters he writes are solely for himself (I could say more about this but I don’t want to be too spoiler-y).

I also think it’s interesting that you see a glimpse of his home life: his mother seems like a loving person, which only furthers the sense that there is something innately off about Alfred. He may not be ‘evil’ in the sense that he’s actively looking to hurt other people (i.e. he’s not a serial killer… yet), but since his selfish actions lead to such horrifying consequences that he completely and intentionally fails to acknowledge, I can’t think of him as anything but evil. Like Trump, to borrow Rachel’s example.

@youngadultescent:

Exactly! I felt sad for him. His feelings of inadequacy and need for importance don’t excuse his behavior, at all, but I think the author included Alfred to show how easy it can be for some people to gravitate toward a hateful movement. It’s unrealistic to believe that all, or even most, Nazis or Nazi-sympathizers were just doing what they had to do to survive. I would bet that a lot of people were like Alfred, they felt like they were owed something and needed to do something about it.

And I think this willingness to join a bigger cause to defend a perceived loss of autonomy definitely still happens. Nice guys never get the girl, men’s rights are under attack, games are being unfairly criticized for their sexism, and gosh dang, if we could just build a big enough wall, maybe Americans would feel more safe. Emotionally mature adults don’t really label people as exclusively nice or bad (uh, most of the time, like some people are Bad, but you know what I mean here). And I would say that actually people really do want a nice partner. And they usually want their nice partner to have other redeeming qualities. Feminism isn’t about taking away men’s rights, as if that is even a thing that has ever happened. Video games (and gaming culture) do have a problem where women and genders other than cis men feel excluded. Like, there are a lot of real violent video games and women are targeted in the game and so are the gamers in real life. Aaaaaaand I think we all know that Americans shoot each other with enough regularity that no one even takes notice of it anymore, so I cannot imagine being moved enough by those racist “safety” rants to vote for Trump based on your logical assessment of real threats. If you were voting based on safety, not racism, wouldn’t you also want better, more affordable, healthcare (including mental health resources, access to counseling, and a better way for victims to receive healthcare after a violent act), revision of gun laws, police reform, and other issues that would help mitigate or prevent the amount of gun violence we inflict on ourselves? But here we are. It was pretty easy to see why Alfred gravitated toward service in the German army. I think we’re supposed to look at the circumstances that lead to him (and others like him) to a political cause that ended in the genocide of millions of people, and see how we can keep that from happening again.

[reblogbookclub]

Can we have some #REALTALK about Alfred?

What do you guys think? Does anyone not totally hate him? Do the parts of his character that seem desperate for strength or approval or importance make him more redeemable, or worse?

I felt like there was something distinctly contemporary about the way his cruelty grew from his sense of himself as an underdog. I know someone said “Fedora-wearing nice guy.” I also thought of MRAs and Gamergate, even Trump. Do you think this was something the author intended? Or maybe I am too fond of Tumblr and it has turned my brain? - @rachelfershleiser

[reblogbookclub]

Can we have some #REALTALK about Alfred?

What do you guys think? Does anyone not totally hate him? Do the parts of his character that seem desperate for strength or approval or importance make him more redeemable, or worse?

I felt like there was something distinctly contemporary about the way his cruelty grew from his sense of himself as an underdog. I know someone said “Fedora-wearing nice guy.” I also thought of MRAs and Gamergate, even Trump. Do you think this was something the author intended? Or maybe I am too fond of Tumblr and it has turned my brain? - @rachelfershleiser

[reblogbookclub]

“I became good at pretending. I became so good that after a while the lines blurred between my truth and fiction. And sometimes, when I did a really good job of pretending, I even fooled myself.”

Ruta Sepetys | Salt to the Sea

[reblogbookclub]

Salt to the Sea - Final Thoughts

I couldn’t last the final week and powered through the rest of Salt to the Sea last Tuesday night. I wasn’t aware how attached I was to this book until I was at the very end. This book broke my heart. Not many books make me teary-eyed at the end but this one definitely did. 

I have to admit that I was one of those mentioned in the book that have never heard of the Wilhelm Gustloff. I gathered it’s fate by the clues throughout the book but to realize this was so easily missed in all my history lessons saddens me. Such an epic tragedy in history and yet it’s never crossed my path. It made me feel uneducated. Ruta’s note at the end regarding doing our own research resonated with me and I am plan to do just that.

Speaking of things I did not know, I looked at the summary’s of Ruta Sepetys’s other books and I was not aware that her Between Shades of Gray is a companion book to Salt of the Sea. It’s on my to read list now.

[reblogbookclub]

Book Review: Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys

Now comes the end of yet another @reblogbookclub. I always get a little sad when these end. Still, I’m super grateful for the club introducing me to yet another fabulous author.

Salt to the Sea is a fictionalized account of the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff. The story is told through the point of view of four teens/young adults who end up coming together for very different reasons. We have Joana, the nurse from Lithuania; Florian, the art-restoring Prussian; Emilia, the lost Polish girl; and Alfred, a super lame jerkface serving aboard the Wilhelm Gustloff.

The four narrators alternate telling the story through very short chapters. Some of them are as long as a handful of pages long and some are as short as a sentence. While some may find that jarring, I actually really loved it as a narrative device. The format keeps you on the edge of your seat and guessing. It also helps make the book impossible to put down.

I’m slowly making my way into historical fiction, and this was an excellent book to help. It’s beautifully written and the characters are fascinating. Despite the tragedy in the story, there’s even a love story. I adored that.

This book is also important because it’s bringing attention to the Wilhelm Gustloff. I’ve never heard about it before this book and it’s the greatest maritime disaster in history. Reading this book makes me want to learn more about that facet of World War II. I also want to go back and read everything that Ruta Sepetys has written previously.

I found myself thinking about the events and characters in this book long after I put it down. I can’t give a book any more praise than that.

I would recommend this book to historical fiction fans, WWII buffs, anyone who enjoyed The Monuments Men, and anyone just looking to read a solidly good piece of literature.

I gave it a 5/5 on my Goodreads account which translates to “It was amazing.”

[reblogbookclub]

National Geographic has a short video entitled “Mystery of the Amber Room”.  I thought that this was a really interesting addition to Salt to the Sea and it made it feel connected to All the Light We Cannot See (which I loved).