Review: Sophia’s Storm by Cara Skinner

The past meets the present in Sophia’s Storm, a gripping historical novel written for young adults by Cara Skinner.

It’s fourth of July week during the summer of 79. Sixteen-year-old Sophie Reiter and her extended family have assembled at her grandparents’ Galveston beach house for their annual week-long get together, but this year’s gathering is bittersweet, due to the passing of Sophie’s beloved Great Aunt Sophia last November at the age of eighty-nine. Her great aunt had died before she could tell Sophie about the most terrible time in their family’s history: a time when Galveston was nearly destroyed by a great storm.

During her first night at the beach house, Sophie is awoken by the apparition of her great aunt who visits several more times, leading Sophie to the discovery of her great aunt’s journal and some other seemingly random, yet treasured mementos, for which there’s no explanation, until Sophie begins reading the journal…

Skinner’s story alternates between Sophie’s week at the beach house in 1979 and the entries from her Great Aunt Sophia’s journal, written during the month of July, 1901 when she had been a young girl. Sophia’s journal entries recount her parents’ meeting and eventual arrival in Galveston, her idyllic childhood growing up by the beach and playing with her best friend, Garland Markovich, her next-door neighbor and the son of her parents’ best friends. It also recounts, in chilling detail, the events that led up to the devastating hurricane that all but decimated Galveston and killed many of those near and dear to young Sophia Kraus and her family.

The novel is written with emotional integrity, as Skinner relays a depth of feeling through the strength of character of her two main protagonists, Sophie and Sophia as a young girl. There’s almost a visceral connection between the two protagonists, notwithstanding the almost eight decades between their respective stories. The relationship between best friends, young Sophia and Garland Markovich, is also convincing, with their protection of baby Charlie particularly admirable during the onset of the hurricane, serving as a good example for future generations.

Alternating storylines are difficult to write and in order for both to work effectively, there needs to be a beginning, middle and end to each, and in most cases, the two storylines are dependent on one another. The past needs the present to uncover the story, and the present (in this case, 1979) is typically influenced or affected by the past. Although Skinner manages to pull off both in Sophia’s Storm, her historical storyline is more fully fleshed out. Sophie’s story is sweet, but creates less of an impact, as the author seems to have rushed the ending, trying a little too hard to create the strands of cohesion between the various present-day characters in order to tie up the loose ends from the past.

That said, Sophia’s Storm is unquestionably a captivating tale of lives lost and battles won while shedding poignant insight on how the past can influence our future.