Laut Bercerita

Good morning, good afternoon and good night to all of the readers reading! On this article, I’m gonna be reviewing one of my favorite books from my collection, “Laut Bercerita” —just a reminder, this article will contain a lot of spoilers, so if you’re about to read Laut Bercerita and don’t want to read any spoilers, please avoid reading this article!

Laut Bercerita was released on 2017 by Laila S. Chudori, an inspiring Indonesian author that opened my bind to these political books. She wrote this book in the memorial of the victims in 98′ that got kidnapped, tortured, passed away, and even disappear from the earth.

Laut Biru, —the main character— is a man with strong will to overthrow the current president in 1998, Suharto. Along with his friends, Laut often meet up with his friend as a “secret society” —so the government won’t notice— and conference meetings about how will they overthrow the president. Were they consumed with scared feelings? Yes, but were they scared if they’re gonna get caught for planning to overthrow the president? Absolutely not.

Even when Laut and his friend was betrayed by who they thought a trustful friend, still keeps their mouth shut in the interrogation room. Even when they were raped, tortured, and beaten u to death, they didn’t spill anything about their society. Until one of his friends just disappeared out of nowhere, then after, one by one his friends started to also disappear, he didn’t know where they went, were they being sent to a remote island? Were they being tortured in different place? Or were they killed in after they were sent out from the secret base where the military held them? No one knows. Until it was his turn.. they were already tired asking him questions and received useless information, so they decide to bring him out from the military base. But where did he went? To the sea, the sea that matches his name —Laut— and tied a heavy metal slave usually use to tie his legs, and a rope to tie his hand. He was thrown to the water, drowned alone, scared, terrified, missing his family that he had not meet for the last few months, and finally, he was reunited with his name, the sea. Being looked by the fish that sees him with pity, being caressed by the corals of the blue sea, being swayed by the gentle and harsh wave of the sea. The quote I remembered most about the book? “Matilah engkau mati, engkau akan hidup berkali-kali”.

My opinion on this book? Amazing. It represents how the victims felt when they were being chased and tortured, I also love how the author wrote this book in memorial of the victim, and to respect the family whom their loved ones had disappeared and passed away because of this tragic event, it also reminds me how the history of our independence was not that easy for the people to go through. Would I recommend this book to everyone? Of course not, because it might be too heavy for those who only started reading. But for those who like heavy language-d book, I would definitely recommend this book. But do know, that this book might be triggering for those who have been bullied or experienced the same thing as Laut Biru and his friends. My overall rating is 9.5/10, don’t forget to read it *wink

Thank you all so much for reading my first book review in this website, I do hope that i can write article more often here. See you all next time!