All at sea was a memoir about a woman named Decca, how she fell in love with a black drug dealer. Cocaine smoker. A New York gangster. She made him a better person and married him. They had two boys, Jake and Joe. They all went on vacation and one of the boys goes out to sea by his self. Decca and Tony (The husband) swim out to get him. Decca takes her child back to shore thinking Tony is right behind her, But she turns around to find out that Tony is 50 yard farther out. He dies, but no one knows how. People say he drowned without going under water. Then the rest of the book is about her life, how her parents met, how she was married to a guy named Paul but wasn't happy with Paul. Then she met Tony and fell in love with him.

Here is what I think of the book. I hated this book to be honest. Which I find surprising, because as I told you in the paragraph above it was about her life and book like this one are the kinda books i like, but it was so depressing, and it had a lot of bad language in it plus all the talk about his job as a cocaine dealer and how he would cook it over her stove and she pretended it was a normal thing instead of saying something. I understand this actually happened and it was a tragedy but I read the first 3 chapters and they were interesting because her son went out to the ocean on his own and both the parents go out to save him and we know one of them is going to die so there is mystery of which one is gonna die. Then we have the back story of the dead husband, with is ok but thats where most of the cocaine talk was. but then the rest of the book was about how she was a mom of two with no husband, and how everyone was willing to give her things, but she continues to be sad. It was just plain boring to me. ( )

Decca Aitkenhead describes herself as the kind of person who has always controlled her feelings to the point where they're difficult to even find. I very much relate to that, but I suspect that may also be what my issue with this book was.

All at Sea is written in sentences that are beautiful at times, but the overall story isn't engaging or even interesting. It's at its best when describing the start of her relationship with Tony and his untimely death, but it devolves from there and some parts don't even seem relevant.

I'm sorry for her loss, but her account misses the mark for me. ( )