Sea of Tranquility: A novel
NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • The award-winning, best-selling author of Station Eleven and The Glass Hotel returns with a novel of art, time, love, and plague that takes the reader from Vancouver Island in 1912 to a dark colony on the moon five hundred years later, unfurling a story of humanity across centuries and space.
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Community Reviews
A quiet, poignant, meditative book. I'm amazed at what the author accomplishes in under 300 pages. She pulls together deft, evocative of sketches of 4 characters across 4 time periods while also exploring deeper themes including family, purpose and the meaning of reality.
I didn't love it quite as much as Station Eleven but I still loved it!
**3.5⭐️**
It’s not that the book wasn’t good or that I didn’t like it, but I was still confused at the end.
I more enjoy a story that is tied up nice and neatly at the end, and this just didn’t do it for me.
Multiple timelines can be really entertaining, but I feel like this story just moved too quickly and we only got bits and pieces throughout.
However, I absolutely love that h IMMEDIATELY broke the first rule of time traveling. Not a second thought.
This is the first book from Emily St. John Mandel I've read and I absolutely loved it! I enjoyed how the story was woven together and brought together in the end. Wonderful. Adding Station Eleven to my TBR!
This book is a great example of when you should read the blurb first. It's not always the case, of course, that reading the blurb first is important, or even advisable, but for this book, the blurb gave me just enough information to understand the relevance of the first sections of the book, without giving away any major plot points.
So the blurb tells us that we're dealing with people in multiple time periods, and that someone is tasked with figuring out what links the different people together. However, the blurb gives away nothing in terms of the intricacy of the plot, the loveliness of the writing, or the depth of the characters, even those of whom we see very little.
What makes this book even more enchanting is that it's very self-referential, and also refers to Mandel's previous book, The Glass Castle, putting the reader in mind of Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. Readers who pay close attention to the details will be rewarded with seeing those details take on extra importance and meaning in other scenes, allowing the whole picture to come together seamlessly.
FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.
So the blurb tells us that we're dealing with people in multiple time periods, and that someone is tasked with figuring out what links the different people together. However, the blurb gives away nothing in terms of the intricacy of the plot, the loveliness of the writing, or the depth of the characters, even those of whom we see very little.
What makes this book even more enchanting is that it's very self-referential, and also refers to Mandel's previous book, The Glass Castle, putting the reader in mind of Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell. Readers who pay close attention to the details will be rewarded with seeing those details take on extra importance and meaning in other scenes, allowing the whole picture to come together seamlessly.
FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.
I loved everything about this book- the writing style and fluidity, the relatability and tenderness, and the solace of it all. This is the best book I’ve read this year by far.
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