Leza Lowitz

"When we help each other, we become bigger than ourselves."

Up From the Sea
by Leza Lowitz

Up from the sea....what an unusual and moving story.

This story is about Kai. Although it is fiction, the author writes it is based on the earthquake an tsunami that occurred in Japan March 11, 2011,

Kai is just a kid, in this story when the earth quake and tsunami hit. Told in verse, (a format I have started to read though I have not had all that much experience with it), the book is deeply sad.

Kai loses just about everything. He has no idea where his family is and if they are alive, which seems doubtful. He feels disconnected from life, angry and grieving with survivor's guilt. This is about that and more. It is also about his healing process and how he grows from a scared child into a young man, It's about how he finds himself.

I'll be honest...I cannot say I "enjoyed" this because it's a pretty dark book overall but I liked Kai and I wanted to see how things turned out for him.

Another important thing for people to know is that this book is also, to an extent, about 9/11. In the story Kai is able to met and connect with, survivors from 9/11 and although these two events happen in different countries and are about different tragedies, the pain they leave behind is no different for the survivors.

I was very impressed with the writing and the story itself. It's fairly short but it's powerful. I would highly recommend it.… (más)

I'm very glad that I don't have to be the vindictive ass who gives the tsunami book a low score, because I was worried there for a bit.

Lowitz's strength with her verse seems to be in character motivation and imagery, not in action. The actual tsunami itself drills on plainly, with metaphors and similes you'd expect from a novel about natural disasters. There was nothing in them that justified verse, and it fed into one of my worst pet peeves when it comes to YA verse - the author thinks

that

they can just

space out lines and

that qualifies

as meaningful

poetry

So, why did it end up getting four stars from me? Quite simple, really. Lowitz really pulls it together fairly quickly. Once the tsunami and its aftershocks end - about forty or so pages in, I'm too lazy to grab my actual copy - we dive right into the characters. seeing how the disaster has affected them on a personal and literal level. Here, verse is justified, and churns out some pretty great poetry as a result. Story progression from here on out feels more natural, simply because it is directly tied to characters and not the primal urge to run from danger. The book becomes simply beautiful at this point, my favorite scene being where the main character runs away from their shelter and meets a drunken man. The circumstances surrounding something as "natural" (some might argue with me on my wording/intention here) as a teenager sneaking their first beer is simply ghastly, haunting, even, and certainly stuck with me.

Overall, this one is certainly worth the read, especially because of what it stands for - even if you have to push through the less-than-stellar beginning.… (más)