The everyday pain and loneliness. The one you don't even always register. The small gift of hope and belonging within the gentle friendship between a sailor and a little girl. And a red ship.

This is a novel what made me feel like a teenage spirit once again. When you feel more than think, when the pain and the beauty of feeling are everything. In all the goodness and limits of this.

Isla is a girl living with her divorced mother and younger brother - and she is facing all of the "small" crisis of her situation alone, and even trying to take the best care of her brother.
Bo is a Danish sailor and cook loving the life at a "good ship" Nella Dan. Nella Dan sails to Antarctica and back with the expeditions and life is good on her. But there is loneliness, too, and man might start dream about settling down, maybe.
So Isla and Bo meets. He might have a relationship with her mother, but he is also very much present in Isla's life. A kind of father and daughter relationship, just a few moments, but the kind of the ones who stays here for a life.

This is beautifully written book. It reads more like a collection of short stories, as there is a very little of timeline. Or a diary pages. You read the pieces of Isla's and Bo's life, small stories - some "normal", some sad, some about the tender understanding between them.

But maybe there is too much sadness there.
After all, this tender bonding - this is a beautiful thing, a gift for life. One should value and enjoy these gifts, and remember them with warmth.

So read this book for its beauty, and for your memories. And then go to the phone and call, or open the e-mail inbox, or just find a pen and some paper. And say "Thank you".