West Finch is clinging to the sea coast, erosion eating away at it each year. Twins Tommy and Ellis no longer have a close relationship. Ellis and Harlow are inseparable best friends. Following one big storm, the three will find themselves competing, testing and bonding in ways unexpected and surprising.

This beautiful book belongs in every school library. It's a richly complex conversation about growing up, figuring out who you are through the disasters you survive and deciding what to do in their wake. Life is messy, complicated, and full of muddy choices and worse hurdles. How Tommy, Ellis and Harlow navigate; who they choose to rely upon and ultimately see their way clear of the debris of those disasters is how they grow. I love that the three main characters in this book are complex, flawed and by turns frustrating and likeable. All three earnest, authentic and vulnerable. So much of this reads of beautiful desperation. Seizing the moment even though they know it's fleeting. This book will resonate for readers who’ve felt overwhelmed and vulnerable beyond measure in the face of everything life throws because sometimes we thrash hoping for the best while bracing for the worst.

“Where you can touch stones carved thousands of years ago and see that most things can be saved, if not always in the ways you expect.”

Reader warnings: clinical depression, suicide

I could not stop reading this book. I devoured this in one day and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this since. I was really interested in how this book handled a couple different tough subjects and I definitely took away a lot from it. I was so invested in what was going to happen to these these characters even though I kinda hated them a little bit (sometimes a lot) throughout it all. Despite that, I still wanted everything to somehow miraculously end up okay for them! But that ending though. Why could I not have gotten even a hint of how they ended things it’s driving me crazy! But I have to say, that just shows how well written this story was to have made me feel so strongly about it.

Content Warnings at end of Review.

Thank you to Netgalley and Fierce Reads for the arc of this book.

Sometimes you read a book and you just know it is going to haunt you. You'll be in the grocery store 15 years from now and remember exactly how it felt to read it. You'll wake up in a cold sweat at 2 am with lingering images from a scene in the book that somehow made it into your dreams even though you weren't thinking about it before you went to sleep. That's what this book was for me.

West Finch, Maine has been slowly sinking into the ocean. With rising tide levels and crumbling sea walls, any big storm could mean the end of another business. Harlowe is determined to stop it and save her town, and her best friend, Ellis will help her because saying no to each other would feel like cutting off their own limb. But when Ellis' twin brother, Tommy, swims into a stormy sea without the intention to return, things begin changing for the three teenagers in ways they never thought possible.

I am absolutely obliterated by the writing in this book. It destroyed me. I shouldn't be surprised that the title comes from a poem because everything about this book is pure poetry. It's gripping, haunting, painful and tense and real and I will absolutely never forget it. It left a mark on me.

There is something magnifying about the relationships between Harlowe and Ellis and Tommy in this book. They are in no ways healthy relationships, but they are certainly unforgettable. And gut-wrenching.

The ending of this book killed me. It's completely ambiguous and I will probably never stop thinking about it.

Pub Date: June 8, 2021

Content Warnings:
Graphic: Car accident, Death, Grief, Mental illness, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide attempt, and Toxic relationship
Minor: Vomit, Self harm, Cancer, and Medical content

*TRIGGER WARNING: Book contains instances of suicidal ideation and attempted suicide, as well as detailed depictions of depression*

In the small town of West Finch, Maine, three people’s lives are intertwined. Sixteen-year old Harlow Prout is an activist who has a complicated relationship with her best friend Ellis and his twin brother Tommy. Ellis, having suffered a childhood injury that has left him with a severe injury, constantly runs away from his problems and has a broken relationship with his twin brother. Tommy, is clinically depressed, and in the wake of the town’s latest devastating storm, attempts to commit suicide but is saved at the last minute. Harlow and Ellis have always been best friends and have an extremely codependent relationship (to the point where it is unhealthy) and Harlow and Tommy have always disliked each other....until now. Harlow and Tommy begin to start a relationship and with this, Harlow and Ellis begin to separate, on top of that all three harbor secrets that threaten to destroy all their relationships.

If I’m being real honest here, Harlow and Ellis were not great people and were extremely unlikeable. The only characters I actually liked and connected with were Tommy and his dog. Harlow is obsessed with “the plan”, her perfect plan for her future with Ellis and constantly fixing things, fixing people, and least we forget she constantly bullies Tommy and when the secret of what she does to him comes out I wasn’t even surprised. Ellis on the other hand is also not a great character, he is the type of person who must have it be about them and no one else. He can’t stand to see Harlow focus on anyone but him and he has to have the separation of Harlow and Tommy, and then when Harlow and Tommy start dating he does everything to separate and destroy that relationship. And onto Tommy, he is someone who is still trying to deal with his mental illness and trying to find some semblance of what to do next. All three of them just do not work together, I so badly wanted Tommy to cut them out of his life.

Onto the ending of the book.... I hated it. I just... I was left with the feeling of “what did I just read? thats it? Is that how this ends??”

*Thanks Netgalley and Macmillan Children's Publishing Group for sending me an arc in exchange for an honest review*

I liked this YA. I especially liked the excerpt that preceded it. But I think I liked Tommy the best.

Ellis is kind of a jerk. And Harlow is pretty annoying. I don't understand their friendship. I don't know why she continues to focus on "the plan" and many of her actions are never explained.

But Tommy's struggles are real and interesting and his interactions and relationships are much better written. When Harlow is with him, the chemistry comes through.

So I'd say the book is uneven, but it has its moments mostly when Tommy and Harlow are together.

I don’t know how to rate this one. I think it’s memorable and I know some student will enjoy it. I think I’ll recommend it for strong readers who will put up with the length with little action. In my mind, it’s a mashing of Jacob Have I Loved and All The Bright Places.

I think the reason I’m not sure about it is because I just couldn’t like Harlow. She’s one of three main characters. And when you don’t like the pivotal character, from which both other characters ebb and flow... well, it makes it hard. And it was just too long once I realized she wasn’t going to have a redemption arch.

The ending was just stupid. Others have said it fit in with the book’s style but I disagree. I just think it’s a cop-out for the author.

Harlow is determined to save her hometown from being swept away into the ocean. If only she could stop getting in her own way and find someone willing to help.. There's an unexpected change between these three teens.

The Sea Is Salt and So Am I is a touching multiperspective glimpse into the reality of teens' lives.
The characters were based on three different teenagers and their experiences of depression and mental health issues. The novel used POV chapters that focused on each character's experience. I enjoyed the setting of the story. In the beginning of the story. I felt confused I read the first three chapters and I had to stop and try to figure out who they were. It was challenging for me to connect with the rest of the story. I would reread this, I enjoyed the view on mental health and depression.

If you a are a fan of Y.A contemporary I think you would enjoy this.

This book is beautifully written with memorable prose and metaphors. It follows Harlow, Tommy, and Ellis, three teens in a seaside town, battling inner demons and climate change. The 3 person POV was a little jarring at first, but works once you get deeper into the book. I'd call this a quiet book with explosive moments, that focuses more on character than plot. Overall, I enjoyed the read, but it wasn't a page-turner.

This book just wasn’t for me, unfortunately. While the premise seems quite promising and I found the depiction of Tommy’s depression interesting and real, I didn’t connect with any of the characters, which took away from my reading experience.

(Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the eARC.)

I had a really hard time connecting to any of the characters; the three alternating POVs felt a little choppy and the ending was kind of off putting for me. Ultimately, I didn't enjoy this book as much as I was hoping to

Cassandra Hartt's The Sea is Salt and So Am I tells a twisted narrative of three alternating chapters of narration. One narrator is Harlow, an environmental activitst who seems to destroy or anger just about everything she touches; then there is Ellis, her best friend who lost part of his legs in a childhood accident and has a codependent relationship with her; the last is Tommy, Ellis' suicidal twin brother whom Ellis and Harlow really seem to hate.

The use of metaphor and vivid descriptions are impressive throughout the novel, but the ending just really ruined it for me. None of the characters have healthy relationships with one another, and I'd have a hard time recommending this one to a teen.

Well, the disclaimer at the beginning that there are scenes of depression, suicidal ideation and suicide attempts, does let you know this isn’t a summer beach read. It starts with a house falling into the ocean.
Harlow wants to keep her small Maine town from being washed into the sea by storms of increasing intensity. She is best friends with one twin boy, Ellis, a Bi, one legged athlete; and at odds, but hooks up with, the other twin, depressive, friendless, suicidal Tommy, who tries to drown in the ocean during rough weather. Told in three voices, this is long, drawn out and at times brutal. The writing is, in places, gorgeous, but it’s a difficult journey.

A jagged, complex book about twin brothers, the girl who's shadowed them for years, and a town falling into the sea.

This book was absolutely fantastic. I've already added it to our library collection on preorder and will recommend it to students.

4.5 stars

This is an interesting book. I feel like I could have easily been bored with the story but something about the writing and the characters made me want to keep reading. It's a multi- POV story and honestly I hated/was frustrated with each one of the three main characters at least once throughout the book, but they also felt believable and realistic as teenagers.

I would describe this book as quiet with not a very straightforward storytelling. It takes place in a small town that gets hit with storms pretty often and there are other issues the residents face because of the global warming. There are characters with a depression and disability caused by an accident.

What I found unusual in this book was that some things are implied or hinted at a few times without actually telling you what happened, and you get to try connecting dots until suddenly the writer hits you with a memory or confession with the truth when you least expect it. I was a little confused with how it ended because it was more of an open ending, again not very straightforward, so we can make out of it what we best want I guess.

Overall, I think some might find it maybe a little repetitive and monotonous, but I liked it anyway because of the atmosphere and the pace. The book was very enjoyable to me in a kind of soothing way.

This was a interesting read. And to be honest I struggled for a bit! But quickly after it got better. I don't know if it was the writing or what.... But other than that this was a good YA fiction book!
I didn't care for this ending I thought it could have been more!

These are some of the most believable characters I've ever read in this genre. For anyone that gets frustrated reading YA, feeling like the teens are either too immature, or have too much adult-like perspective, this book is for you.

The book is in multiple POV and every character has both faults and redemptive qualities aplenty. The story shows exactly how people, especially sixteen-year-olds, live inside contradictions. How any one person can be selfish yet loving (Harlow), ambitious yet needy (Ellis), talented yet struggling (Tommy).

It's familiar in the love-triangle setup, yet feels fresh and new tackling subjects like depression, disability and climate change. Set in a coastal Maine town falling into the sea, I could feel it, taste it, smell it. So real, thinking about it feels like accessing memory from a vacation I've taken myself. The writing is *so good*—the author could probably find a way to make a story about a blank white wall lyrical and interesting. I underlined so many amazing lines.

This is a beautiful, ambitious and remarkable book.

There was such a profoundly tragic beauty to every part of this story: the vanishing small coastal town that threatens to slip beneath the waves with each passing year, the way we cannot plan our futures and selectively remember the past; the fact that everything, everything, everything changes. I found this novel beautiful and evocative--I felt like sometimes I too was sometimes biking through the salty mist--but while I enjoyed moving between the three main characters POV, I did feel like there was sometimes a (slight) lack of distinction between the three. There was also an adult literary quality to this novel, despite a squarely YA story. And while the end will likely generate a lot of debate and conversation, I loved how purposefully unclear the ending of the novel is. In a novel full of secrets, it felt fitting for the reader to be on the outside of a secret too. Really beautiful, surprisingly moving novel. CW: suicide, depression

I very much enjoyed the setting of this book and felt that the author did a good job describing it and setting it up. The characters were complex but not overly so and seemed realistic as well. The author wrote about mental health in a way that didn’t come across poorly or condescending either.

I did not enjoy the multiple narrators, even though it did work well for this book.

I also didn’t like the ending, although that’s just a personal preference of course!

This book contains some beautiful, poetic passages in a drama of romance, friendship, and grief set in a town threatened by global warming and rising sea levels. The tragic beauty of the setting establishes the tone of the story, this sense of washing away and longing to preserve that which may not be able to be saved. The narration alternates between twin brothers Ellis and Tommy and Harlowe, whose relationship with the brothers is best described as complicated. The cast of townsfolk is also engaging. The last third of the book seemed to lag and there are some turns in the plot that come up without any foreshadowing so feel a bit jolting. The ending felt a bit too easy for the protagonists, but wrapped up an engaging and intriguing story.