Unsinkable (Abby Sunderland) Review

She Is Unsinkable!


I recently had the opportunity to read Unsinkable by Abby Sunderland, the 16-year-old girl who attempted to sail non-stop around the world alone and unassisted. When I first saw this book available for review, I was quite excited to get the opportunity to read it. Although I do not know Abby personally, we share a common thread in that we are both alumni of the same high school, and I know several people who are personal friends of hers. I followed Abby’s journey while she was on it, via her blog and various news sources.

And I obviously wasn’t the only person in my family eager to read the book…..as soon as it arrived, my dad started flipping through it, and I didn’t get it back until he had read the whole thing. And as soon as I got it back, my mom came and found it and read it….so I didn’t get to start reading it right away. But once I started it, I was in for an adventure.

With Abby’s trip came lots of criticism…criticism of her, criticism of her parents, and criticism of pretty much anything people could think to criticize. One thing I particularly liked about this book is that she addressed a lot of that media criticism and shared how things weren’t actually how the media portrayed it.

The book is told from the perspective of the narrator, Abby and those who rescued her. This allows the reader to truly get a variety of perspectives on Abby’s trip.

Through this book I learned about Abby’s strengths. I learned about her perseverance and how she did not want to stop, no matter what. Abby’s trip did not go as planned, by any means. She had to re-start her solo-round-nonstop attempt from Cabo San Lucas shortly after starting out from Marina del Rey. Then she had to make the very difficult decision to pull into Cape Town, Africa. Through the book I learned what a struggle this was for her. Abby felt like she was admitting defeat, but eventually she realized that it was for her safety that her team was advising her to stop and make some crucial adjustments to her boat.

Then there was the story of when Abby was trapped in the Indian Ocean and how she really was afraid that she would never be found and rescued. She knew the chances were extremely slim. But she refused to give up hope.

Although I had little criticisms of the book (for example, I think the writing style could’ve been better, but since Abby was only 16 or 17 at the time of the book’s writing I can’t complain too much!), overall it was a great story of Abby’s adventure sailing around the world. She really is unsinkable! If Abby gets the opportunity to try again to sail around the world, I hope she can make it all the way non-stop. :)

Thank you to Thomas Nelson Publisher’s BookSneeze program for providing me with this book in exchange for an honest review.