A Very Large Expanse of Sea - Book Review

I missed you, Tahereh Mafi!

Around this time a year ago (ish), I read An Emotion of Great Delight which is Tahereh's other contemporary novel. I have been looking for AVLEoS in every bookstore I've been to because I enjoyed AEoGD so much. And I finally ordered it online haha because for some reason no bookstores have this amazing book in stock.

Firstly, I would like to say that Tahereh Mafi is one of very few authors who can actually write hetero romantic relationships that I actually enjoy reading about. (Speaking of which I started another book and I didn't realise it was romance until it was too late so now I'm stuck reading a romance book). 

I love Tahereh's writing style so much though. She manages to avoid clichés where there could be heaps; and her writing style flows really well (if that makes sense?).

Ok this book was so heartbreaking though. All of Tahereh's books that I've read have been heartbreaking, but all for different reasons. This one was so intense and heartbreaking because of the racism that Shirin had to go through. I can't believe that people can be that horrible. Why on Earth would people want to be so openly racist? And Tahereh described this book as "her story" which breaks my heart all over again because I hate to think that she (and others) had to go through all that hatred.

I think that the portrayal of high school students was pretty accurate in the book, because I have definitely experienced some of the behaviours that were shown in this book. Not the racist ones, since I'm pretty white and stuff (the only person who's ever shown hate towards my background is... my mum...) but just some of the other behaviours.

Ok so Ocean was literally amazing. So was Shirin. It takes a lot of courage to do the things that both of them did (trying not to give spoilers here). I rate them both a 10/10 and I would really like to be friends with them both.

The breakdancing!!! I really liked that part of the story and like, how Shirin used breakdancing as an escape from her life problems. I guess I can kinda relate to that because I do ballet and even though I am absolutely shit at it I use it as an escape from life. The fact that Tahereh Mafi used to breakdance makes her even cooler. She is literally the coolest author I have ever known of. Here is her being cool.

I actually did enjoy the romance aspect of this book which is kinda rare for me, but as I said before Tahereh is very good at writing romance in comparison to other authors. I felt like I could understand the whole romance thing a little better in this book, just because it was so well written. And also I am having a very weird time with my feelings at the moment (which I might write a post about if I can bother) so I felt differently about this romance, like I could relate more? I dunno man it is very complicated.

The amount of emotion and pain that was contained in this short book was really amazing. I know that this book was very personal for Tahereh, and that was definitely clear throughout the novel. Something else that Tahereh Mafi is very good at writing is emotion. She can fill her work with so much feeling without it feeling forced. It's like a gradual punch in the face. 

The ending was really sad though. I can't elaborate on that too much without spoiling anything so that's all I will say. It was a subtle sort of sad though, not disastrously sad, you know?

The title of this book is so beautiful though. I like how it's a bit open ended and it can be related to different parts of the book, like Ocean/Sea and also some other metaphorical stuff.

Ummmm I'm still kinda trying to get over this book so I'm gonna leave this post here. This book is so amazing and important though. I suggest reading it -- but before you do please check content warnings.

A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi, 14+* ★★★★.5

*This age recommendation is only my opinion. Some younger people might feel comfortable reading this book, and some older people might not. That's fine, either way. Warning for many potentially upsetting themes, violence, sexual references, swearing and racist and Islamophobic characters who bully/harass other characters.