The Killing Sea

Richard Lewis's The Killing Sea is a fast-paced adventure based on the 2004 tsunami in Aceh. Skillfully crafted chapters alternate between telling the story of Indonesian boy, Ruslan, and Sarah, the Western tourist. After surviving the tsunami (and witnessing a haunting amount of people who didn't), Ruslan begins searching for his father, who he believes has gone to Ie Mameh. After being held hostage by the military and then kidnapped by rebels, Ruslan escapes and eventually meets up with blue-eyed Sarah. Sarah must also find her father, but first she needs to get her younger brother to a hospital. Peter swallowed a lot of water and is getting sicker by the day. Along with Aisya (whom Sarah pulled out of corpse-ridden waters), the three of them set off in search of medical attention. A tug-of-war between hope and despair occurs, as they trek over mountains only to find more flattened villages. They are joined by fellow survivors and finally arrive in Calang. There they are told that the hospital has been destroyed and the medicine, washed away. The Killing Sea is as visually stimulating as watching a movie. It's tastefully written and surely a winner with proceeds going to local Acehnese charities. The most compelling thing about the novel, however, is its sincerity. Even though the book is a work of imagination, Lewis creates a reality. From the water buffalo trying to clamber onto the fishing boat to the detachment Sarah feels upon finding her dead mother, I believed every word.

So glad I'm not alone in giving this wonderful book 5 stars! It a small masterpiece. Other reviewers have already done a great job of summarizing the plot, so I'll just say that this gripping young adult novel about the tsunami is so much more than a heart-thumping page-turner. It's about family, culture, religion, redemption, love and God. I'm eager for my children to read it, and recommend it to all adults, as well. -Ellen Meister, author of Secret Confessions of the Applewood PTA

More than any footage I saw, more than any news articles I read, this book made me feel what it was like to go through the great Indonesian tsumami with its devastating human cost. But this book is much more. It's also a high stakes adventure story. Richard Lewis has taken an unimaginably immense, cataclysmic event and brought it down to the human scale, so that adult and young adult readers can feel the pain and witness the resourceful human spirit in action. This novel has no dull moments. From the momentous tsunami itself to the great labor of survival after it, he makes you identify with Sarah and the great change she goes through, lets you see this world clearly through the artist eyes of Ruslan, and has you care about their long and difficult journey. Sarah, the spoiled American teenager, like Kipling's rich boy in Captains Courageous, is forever changed and deepened by this tragedy in a world so foreign to her and to most American readers. Read it, then give it to a young person you care about. Neither of you will be disappointed.

We bought this book for our son for Christmas, but my wife and I both loved it, too. Richard Lewis takes readers on a gut-wrenching tale of grief and desperation in the aftermath of the tsunami that that struck Indonesia on Christmas Eve 2004. The Killing Sea doesn't dwell on the horrors of the destruction, but it does not shrink from them either. From the terror and disgust that overwhelms Ruslan as he hides in a dumptruck full of decaying corpses to the Sarah's relief when a helicopter lands in front of her, Richard Lewis makes the reader feel what his characters feel. His description of the tsunami itself is a great piece of writing. I would recommend it to anyone.

I purchased The Killing Sea for my son but couldn't wait for him to get through a trilogy he is currently reading and so picked up The Killing Sea and read it myself. Am I glad I did! It's a wonderful read and a real page turner. Two protagonists move through this story: Ruslan, a local Indonesian boy who works at a small beachside cafe in the town of Meulaboh; and Sarah, a teenager who is sailing with her family through the Indonesian islands over the Christmas holiday. The two meet briefly when Sarah's family anchors their sailboat near the cafe, searching for a mechanic to fix their engine. Ruslan (whose mechanic father ultimately fixes the engine) is captivated by Sarah's blue eyes. A budding artist, Ruslan returns home later that night and draws her in his sketchbook (against the teachings of a local cleric who deems any image-making to be a form of idolatry). At the cafe, Sarah barely registers Ruslan's existence before stalking off to the sailboat when her mother insists she don a headscarf out of respect for the local culture. Lewis sensitively and deftly explores the notion of the spoiled American as we see Sarah undergo her own sea change after the tsunami rips her world apart. Both Ruslan and Sarah are left parentless: Ruslan, motherless since birth, cannot find his father after the tsunami; Sarah's parents disappear beneath the rising waters as they flee their stranded sailboat. She learns the fate of one shortly after the waters recede, the other she cannot find before she must embark on a search for a hospital for her younger brother who inhaled seawater and is having difficulty breathing. Ruslan and Sarah's paths intersect again, post-tsunami, as the two teens struggle to survive against violent rebels, wild animals, contaminated water, blocked roads and mounting hunger. The trials they endure give the teenagers a strong bond of survivorship that transcends gender, race, and religion. In their journey, they are helped by a savvy feline named Surf Cat, a motley group of rebels who are strangely familiar, an unlikely crew of fellow survivors, and a number of cast-off items that are put to inventive good use. The Killing Sea is a story born of the 2004 tsunami, yes (Lewis volunteered as an aid relief worker in the aftermath, and a portion of the proceeds from his book will go to support local relief organizations), but it is not only about the tragedy. It is also about an unlikely friendship that transcends ethnic and religious boundaries. It is an enduring, timeless story--a story of hope and survival, of human triumph against enormous odds.