Salt

Even though their parents disappeared during a hunt three months ago, seventeen-year-old Indi and his siblings, Beleza, Oscar, and Zulu, continue to roam the Mediterranean on their sailboat and hunt down monsters--but Indi yearns for a more settled life for his family, and he hopes that his parents' journal with its tantalizing hints of a treasure, will provide them all with the means of escape from their nomadic and dangerous life before it is too late.

Genres: YA / Fantasy

Author: Hannah Moskowitz

Hardcover, 268 pages

Expected publication: October 30th 2018

Publishing House: Chronicle Books

My Review:

Indi and his siblings, Beleza, Oscar, and Zulu, have lost their parents three months ago mysteriously. As a family they were known to be sics, monster hunters of the Mediterranean Sea. Now that their parents are gone, all the kids have left is a rickety, dilapidated sailboat with malfunctioning equipment and their parents’ diary.

Indi, 17, first mate of the crew and the oldest of them all, spends many nights worrying about their future. He is the provider now. All the others use their talents for various jobs on the boat and on land. Zulu does most of the weaponry, Oscar charms locals to keep food in their stomachs and Beleza is the second in age to Indi and the captain. She used to be first mate and thinks her brother just wrestles through somehow.

The kids are roaming all of the Mediterranean. Just as they did with their parents. Currently, they were headed to Sicily, but their sailboat was giving them trouble, so they changed course and are heading to a busy port in France. All the kids are versed in multiple languages in some capacity or another. Their parents were very worldly, hence the different, unusual names.

At port, Indi is visiting bars and they stay in low rent pensions…they have to keep their money together. This is where he runs into an interestingly different girl. It does not take long until they make out.

From here the kids travel on in hopes to find a certain monster which Indi believes killed their parents, and as they arrive yet at another port, he runs into the same girl again. What was left at one port as a one night stand, is now changing everything.
Why is she seemingly following them or beating them to their travel destinations? Will they find that monster?

***

This adventure could have been so much more. So much more! If you think of scale and scope that reaches all around the Mediterranean, this could have been an amazing novel. Unfortunately, the entire story fell flat without suspense, without tension building, without cohesiveness. A great concept without follow through.

I was hoping so much to enjoy this novel more but there was no substance to it. Having visited many cities around the Mediterranean, I am simply disappointed by the lack of interestingness in the novel about these amazing places. The book failed to touch any senses of travel, adventure or foreign cultures. Although that may have not been the focus in mind, some tangible, tantalizing facts should have been there for enrichment. Basically there was no spice or flavor to it.

This book must have sprung from a grand idea, but was unable to fulfill it.