Slanting Towards the Sea spans twenty years in the life of Ivona, who divorced the love of her life, Vlaho, a decade ago and has returned to her childhood home to care for her ailing father. When she reconnects with Vlaho and is welcomed into his new family by his spirited wife Marina, a fragile and unlikely dynamic forms between the three. Then a new man enters Ivona's life, and everything shifts. Set against the Croatian coastline, it is a story of buried secrets, thwarted potential, and the enduring pull of first love.
My Review
Thank you to Simon & Schuster for the free copy for review.
Slanting Towards the Sea is not a light read. It’s a slow unraveling. A meditation on heartbreak, identity, and the burdens we carry when we grow up in a country still learning how to be whole. Lidija Hilje’s prose is quiet and devastating, pulling you into the private corners of her characters’ lives and refusing to let you look away.
Ivona and Vlaho’s love story begins with the heady optimism of a newly democratic Croatia, a country full of promise and uncertainty. As students, they’re magnetic and inseparable, believing they’re made for each other. But as life encroaches, personal tragedy, economic hardship, and unspoken secrets, their fairytale collapses. Ivona divorces Vlaho, not out of lost love, but because sometimes love isn’t enough to survive reality.
A decade later, Ivona is adrift. Back in her childhood home, caring for her ill father, she finds herself entangled once again in Vlaho’s life. Now, as a friend to his wife and a strange, aching presence in his new family. When another man enters Ivona’s orbit, it disrupts the already delicate balance of this emotionally enmeshed group, stirring up grief, jealousy, longing, and the sharp edge of hope.
This book hurts. It’s not about redemption or catharsis. Ivona is a deeply melancholy figure, and at times it’s frustrating how stuck she is and how much she seems to cling to her pain. But that’s also what makes her so human. Her anguish is raw, relatable, and never glamorized. Vlaho, too, is haunted by the life he didn’t get to live. There’s a quiet masochism in their continued connection, like two people who never really moved on and never really can.
Hilje captures the Balkan spirit with unflinching clarity. How so many of us came of age alongside our countries, navigating personal chaos in tandem with national instability. For those of us from the region, it feels personal. Familiar. Heavy.
Slanting Towards the Sea is a masterful debut. It’s cinematic, introspective, and unafraid to dwell in discomfort. If you’re looking for closure, look elsewhere. But if you’re willing to sit with the messy, aching truth of being alive and loving in uncertain times, this one is unforgettable.