Title: Sea
Author: Heidi R. Kling
Genre: Young Adult
Hardcover: 336 pages
Publisher: Putnam Juvenile (June 10, 2010)
Source: library
Set in: Indonesia
Rating: 3 out of 5
My thoughts:
Sea is about a 15-year-old girl Sienna who lives with her father and grandmother in U.S.A. She lost her mother in a plane crash a few years back. She has serious emotional issues which were the result of her mother’s death. Then she accompanies her father to Indonesia to work with the Tsunami orphans, she is instantly attracted to an Orphan boy Deni who is playing the drums for their welcome ceremony. I found the instant attraction weird. There is nothing that really makes him stand out other than his strong muscles under his tight shirt. I do understand his appeal later on since he seems to be the leader of the other boys and keeps passing deep, dark looks to Sienna. She’s a teenager after all, she’s bound to fall for that.
Anyway, as Sienna gets to know more about the orphan kids and the things they lost, her own sorrow seems very small to her. She works on her father’s team with the kids suffering from Post Traumatic stress disorder. This is the really sad part of the story-reading about children having to watch their entire families swept away. It’s heart breaking.
As a novel, what worked for me in Sea was the setting. I don’t think there are many YA novels that are set internationally. It feels like the author has actually been to Indonesia in the way she describes the landscape, the people and the customs. What didn’t work for me was believing that a boy from a village could speak English so fluently. We have been to Indonesia twice and we’ve had a really tough time communicating with the locals since very few know how to speak English.
If I decide to overlook that I still have a couple of things I didn’t like. Sienna-I didn’t like her and I didn’t understand her. She was stupid and irresponsible and there are only so many things you can excuse for being a teenager. If I was her father I would have grounded her for life. Another thing I didn’t like was the ending. It kind of negated the entire romance between Sienna and Deni for me. I can’t really tell you why without spoiling the end..
But, Sea has its appeal. Even though I didn’t love it, I know there are readers who might love this book.
This book counts for the East and SouthEast Asia Challenge
Book-Shelved 
This book sounds kind of like it was a wasted oppurtunity for the author to tell young adults about another culture and the disasters prevailed upon them. :S Sorry you didn’t enjoy so much. It doesn’t sound that great.
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The author did well on making the readers familiar about a different culture, it were the other things that troubled me 🙂 It’s not a bad book, I liked it, just didn’t love it.
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The book sounds like it had some potential. Kling may be an author to watch for.
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I borrowed this book from the library, but had to return it before I read it. Sounds like I wasn’t missing out on too much….
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An ending can really make or break a book for me too. I’m sorry this one didn’t work out for you!
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The “stupid and irresponsible” thing sounds like something that would annoy me, but I love the idea of a YA novel set internationally! It’s true there aren’t many of those (or if there are, I don’t tend to read them)
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