Sea

Title: Sea

Author: Heidi R. Kling

Pages: 323

Rating: ****

Summary: Haunted by recurring nightmares since her mother’s disappearance over the Indian ocean three years before, fifteen-year old California girl Sienna Jones reluctantly travels with her psychiatrist father’s volunteer team to six-months post-tsunami Indonesia where she meets the scarred and soulful orphaned boy, Deni, who is more like Sea than anyone she has ever met.

She knows they can’t be together, so why can’t she stay away from him? And what about her old best friend-turned-suddenly-hot Spider who may or may not be waiting for her back home? And why won’t her dad tell her the truth about her mother’s plane crash? The farther she gets from home, the closer she comes to finding answers.

And Sea’s real adventure begins.

Review: This book was really, really good. For romance lovers, of course, but I loved the story.
Sienna takes a trip across the globe to help out at an orphanage for tsunami victims. I loved this because so many of us forget that these people's lives are still devastated. We feel bad and donate some money once we hear about it but after a few months we forget and move on. This is the case with most natural disasters. However, the people who live(d) there's lives are forever changed, often for the worse.
And then, of course, there's Deni. Hot, sweet, deep Deni whose family was killed in the tsunami, leaving him on his own. He is a wonderful love interest. But this wasn't some ordinary love interest. Indonesian culture is very different from ours, as most of us know, especially in regards to dating and marriage. That cultural conflict shows up quite a bit in the story.
I really liked Sienna as a protagonist. She could really relate to the kids because, though she still had her father, she lost her mother to the ocean, just like the children at the orphanage. She was in pain herself, and yet she was there trying to help other kids feel better.
Yes, this story has lots and lots of cheese. But it's not just about the romance, and though I predicted the "plot twist" at the end, it still threw a wrench into the story, and I wanted to find out what was going to happen! This is a great summer beach read, and though I realize summer is over, it could be great for the winter as well. When cuddled up by the fire, you can read about Sienna almost melting in the 100 degree heat.

Recommended for: romance lovers (fans of Twenty Boy Summer and Sarah Dessen, though it's not quite up to those levels)