Girl at Sea, by Maureen Johnson

As I read this book in English, I'm going to try to do the review in English. I say "try" because probably my English isn't the best, and there might be some misspellings and confusing things for me to explain or for you, dear reader, to understand. Anyway, here I go. 

Meet Kayley in this video where she recommended some under-known / under-rated books. And this is one of them: Girl at Sea. It sounded nice to me, because Kayley said that the male character was great and that was enough for me for wanting to read this book. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMBWTeuoWLc&feature=plcp

It is interesting how things developed, I didn't have anything in mind but for me it was easy to predict what was going to happen and it turned out to be boring to know stuff before it actually happened. It was easy to read and understand. I feel like nothing in the story went deep. For instance, the love between Clio and Aidan; the relationship between Clio and her father; the hole 'Marguerite stone' thing; the intent of robbering the boat... Everything was superficial. And it was a happy ending. The only time when I feel like something happening is when Clio gets drunk and is attacked by jellyfish, and then she is with Aidan telling him that his dad is careless and that Julia is bad (Clio creates a drama-scene in her head starting by Julia), so then her dad decides to send her back home, which is what she wanted in the beggining but it's not anymore. 

I can't deny the books is good, the characters are well thought and are congruent with their actions and sayings. You can see that Clio is a 17 years old teenager with a lot going on in her head and heart. She feels lonely, she is willing for attention, she is just impulsive. On the other hand, Elsa is gorgeous. She is the lovely pink girl who is always in love or looking for love. She is kind of hollow (I don't know if that is the correct expression), but she doesn't do anything interesting about her life. When she talks about herself, all she says is about her boarding school, boys, parties, her ex boyfriend, how he cheated on her and how she wanted to get over it. Even though, there's a mystery of what's going on in the boat, she seems un-interested in discovering it. She is never reading a book nor painting or something, she just takes naps or lies under the sun.

Aidan it's the "male character" that was great for Kayley in her review. But for me, he was a fool. I like silly boys that mess around and that take it easy and makes jokes. I think he didn't have a clue of what he wanted with girls. He said that he'd never been at it. He kisses Elsa, when she kissed him. He flirts with Clio or not, just have nice conversations and he says he likes her but he doesn't go for it, he waits until she looks out for him... 

I don't know and it's crazy how much I've criticised this book and I don't know if I even explaining myself. It turns out to be very hard to analyze a book and it becomes harder to do it in a different language. 

I read some reviews and apparently a lot of people enjoy this book, and I must agree that is for little girls (not 17, maybe for 12 or 13 years old). Also, I found out that is a "historical-fiction" book which was expected since the Marguerite stone sounded too great to be true. I liked that at times Maureen Johnson presented the Egyptian culture and the Titanic drown. I really got interested in Marguerite, the girl, not the stone and it was really disappointingto find out that she didn't exist. Maybe, she should based some "historical" things in true facts, I don't know. Maybe I should research more to find out that Johnson DID based her writting in historical facts. 

Nevermind, not my best review. But I think it's OK.  ;) 

<3<3<3

3 stars!