I liked this ... it didn't hit me as hard as I would have thought. I still felt like I learned about this horrible event I really didn't have any knowledge of. As the blurb states, it is not well known like the Titanic and Lusitania, even though the loss of life here was staggering.  I think because of the cover images/title and comparison to Titanic/Lusitania, I was expecting more of the story to happen on the ship. But the ship isn't really the setting until about halfway in. 

The POV shifts between four people - Joana, Florian, Emilia and Alfred. The former three end up together early on, while Alfred is located elsewhere (on the ship) and doesn't meet the others until later.  All were told in 1st person/past tense. In audio, different narrators, all with distinct voices, no trouble at all telling the characters apart. 

There are no real chapters ... just the shifts in POV. I had been able to get the Kindle copy too (this is a little older, so the availability at the library wasn't difficult to get) and it was pretty much impossible to try to transition from one format to the next. I really hoped I didn't lose my place because it would have been very hard to find it again. No set reference points.   In the text, the headers/POV  names ... were not capitalized. Not sure why. 

I never felt I really connected to the characters, to care about them and get emotionally involved. Maybe that was partially because the characters themselves did not get super attached ... Florian referred to Emilia in his thoughts as "the Polish girl" more than using her name, also instead of Klaus (a young six year old boy attached to the group) he is thought of as "the wandering boy" ... then there is the giantess and the shoemaker. Florian DOES think of Joanna by her name ...

Things were revealed slowly ... each person has their secrets, keeping things hidden. I think that perhaps kept me a little disconnected from them too. While we do not get the POV of "the wandering boy" and "the shoemaker" ... those two characters were endearing. 

Here we get some different perspectives ... the Polish people were in a very tough spot. Those from Lithuania were slightly better off, but everyone was suffering and struggling as refugees. There is the Prussian ... only able to get where he's going with his counterfeiting skills. Alfred ... I'm sure there could be a sympathetic German soldier ... but Alfred is NOT it. The writing, and the narration, make him instantly unlikeable. 

The ending had me slightly confused, that's when I had to refer to the kindle copy and re-read a few portions to solidify in my mind what had happened. 

This is listed as YA, although it didn't really feel like YA to me. I generally tend to think of the intended audience as the age of the main characters. I don't know that I know Joanna, Florian and Alfred's exact ages, but they seemed late teens, early 20s. Emilia (I keep wanting to write Amelia, as before I saw the name in print, that's what I thought it was based on the pronunciation) is just 15. The writing didn't feel "young". It was clean. No profanity. There was a rape (nothing explicit) and plenty of death/sadness. I would recommend it and believe I'll remember it.