Beautiful, poetic, heartbreaking. I am still not emotionally recovered from this novel and I am at a loss of words to describe how well-written this story is. I love how science was interwoven throughout and how the emotions ebbed and flowed throughout to make the connection between the reader and characters. I would strongly suggest this as a book club read and will be purchasing a physical copy for myself.

This book was so beautifully written! I found myself really loving the characters, their stories, and the way the book flowed as well!

Oh how my heart and soul wept at this story. The prose is filled with a rare excellence that is so simultaneously poetic and straightforward. It mixes the complexities of science with the reality of life, and does a beautiful job doing so. I feel closer to my family from reading this.

"We Carry the Sea in Our Hands" is articulated with a brilliantly lush and sophisticated narrative tone. The premise of this book is descriptively atmospheric. The protagonist’s ebb and flow of emotional framework poetically intertwined with nature is the key selling point of this book. The deliberate placement of melancholia in the storyline offers an authentic portrayal of human experience. Through the ingenious use of sea slugs as metaphors, the author delves into the marvels of biology, painting a vivid picture of life's intricate complexities. Each metaphor is meticulously placed, reflecting the protagonist's emotional state with profound depth and nuance. Yet, amidst the stillness of pain and tragic losses, there is an underlying sense of beauty and resilience that permeates the narrative. It's this juxtaposition of life's unpredictability that keeps the intrigue of the storyline alive, simultaneously reminding us of the fragile yet enduring nature of the human spirit.

my first EVER five star arc, and i'm so glad it's this one. holy hell, i've almost never been this viscerally impacted by a book since rf kuang's babel and crying in h-mart-- this one knocked it out of the park. unbelievably stunning.

i can't put into words how much i love this. maybe it's due to my korean heritage- much like abby, i am half korean- or maybe i'm just a sucker for family based stories with incredible prose, but whatever it may be, i loved this so much. it was the ARC i was hoping to get ever since i applied, and i am so thankful i got the chance to read this. the prose? it's hard for me to be coherent right now, but i loved it. there's something so gut wrenching and impactful about even the smallest of sentences, and it packs an even harder punch in emotional scenes. kim is so good at showing emotions in introspection but not have it come across as verbatim every page, even if most of abby's inner thought circles inevitably around the same theme. the beauty of good fiction is this: it opens up a world of imagination, of pure thought fantasy and indulgent exploration, oftentimes connecting with our own real-world experiences. this is my best example- we carry the sea in our hands by junie kim is quite possibly my favorite book of 2024 so far.

thank you so much for the opportunity to read this arc! i will be screaming about this on GR. <3

This is an ambitious novel for a debut, with a lot of concepts, all tied together by our protagonist Abby. For me, it succeeded in connecting all the dots and presenting a cohesive, compelling, highly readable novel.

Abby is a graduate student studying sea slugs in a very typical lab in a very typical American University. (The writing transported me back to my days of filtering sea water for a certain snail, it may have transported me a little “too well” - IYKYK) Abby’s academic situation is very relatable/typical. Abby, however, is not typical.
Abby is a Korean-American who was left in a South Korean “drop box”. (I had thought these to have been phased out after the Korean War but a quick google showed me that these are still in use.) She’s adopted by a couple that inadequately cares for her and finds refuge with her best friend Isuel and Isuel’s family. As adults she and Isuel remain close - until a sudden tragic event separates them- leaving Abby to forge onwards in grief and discovering in her grief, her underlying strength, resilience and enhanced perception.
Abby’s scientific work focuses in the origins of life, leading her to ponder her own origins. What begins as a fruitless search is suddenly enhanced by a chance discovery in the lab, leading Abby to moderate fame and possibly her own origins. As her story progresses, we are given an opportunity to follow Abby as she travels through grief, generational trauma/immigrant syndrome, navigating complex family and occupational dynamics to arrive at a satisfying resolution as Abby makes peace with her place in the world

Came for the nudibranchs, stayed for the absolutely beautiful story & characters!

The beginning was a little slow for me, and I felt it tended to be a bit repetitive with the information (though this may be intentional for non-science people reading but I am also a marine biologist so that absolutely may be the reason I felt like things were unnecessarily being released).

Once I got into it, I thought this was such a beautiful book about understanding oneself through tragedy and growth. I love how family is centric but represented in many ways. I also felt very pulled into the story as an adoptee specifically.

Overall, a lovely book! I loved all the sea slug love in this book, the science, and emotional backbone.

I received a free ARC via NetGalley for this book. Thank you to NetGalley, publisher and author!

This book comes out on July 9th, and I am so excited to get my hands on a physical copy.

This book was STUNNING. It combined family, grief, belonging, and the wonder of nature, and tied it all off with a giant science ribbon. The writing was evocative and poetic but still accessible, and the cohesion of themes was beautiful.

I’m a scientist, so I adored the scientific elements in this book. You can tell that the author loves the field; it really comes through. I’m not sure if everyone would find the science parts as compelling as I did, but I was just turning page after page, greedy for it.

The MC is a Korean orphan who was left in a drop box as a baby, and grew up in the American foster system. As some kind of extension of her deep curiosity about her roots, she ends up as a sea slug scientist, studying the origins of life. I now know so much more about sea slugs and I kind of love it.

This book becomes an exploration of who the MC is, and in turn, who we all are, and what it is that forms us (DNA, family, trauma, experience…)

So beautiful, and I’d love to read more by this author in the future.

Such a beautiful and powerful novel! The writing was truly sublime, the main character Abby a delight to read from and it was strangely funny as well, which I didn't expect. Please read this book, it was so good, I can't express how much I liked it. 5 stars, 6 stars even.

I got the chills so many times toward the end of this book. It completely blew my mind. It managed to surpass my high expectations AND be nothing at all like I expected. Let me preface this with an apology. If I sound stunningly inarticulate at times in this review, I can't help it. My mind is completely fried from this being amazing. I recommend it for those looking for a good suspense book. My only complaint is that in order to make it a standalone, the author gave away too much of the plots of the previous books.

Janie Kim’s We Carry the Sea in Our Hands is a heartbreaking tale that addresses themes of healing after loss and the reality of growing up in the foster care system. Our main character connects much of her experience back to her study of slugs, and the novel makes for an interesting read.

This story is so real and beautifully told. I enjoyed this book and the character’s journey. Highly recommend this book!

This was a beautifully done novel and I enjoyed how good everything flowed together and was written. the characters felt like real people and I enjoyed going through the story with them. Abby was a great character to follow and I thought she worked really well overall in the story. Janie Kim writes a great story and is able to bring you into caring about the characters and continuing reading the story.

This was really beautiful. Although I'm not an adoptee, I have read quite a bit about adoption trauma, and this one really spoke to me, especially the topic of interracial adoption and blended families. I'll be thinking about this one for a long time.

i was lucky enough to receive an arc of we carry the sea in our hands so here’s my review.
my rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
my thoughts:
- lots of the imagery is incredible and it’s definitely a huge appeal of the book. there are lots of descriptions of science that are vivid.
- it was pretty funny at points and i really loved the mc abby. even though i don’t have the same love of science i related to her and i thought she was a good main character.
- the book touches on grief and i feel like it was explained very well through abby’s mind.
- i feel like i would have enjoyed it more if i was a science person but i’m not unfortunately. if you do like science then i definitely recommend the book. i recommend it if you’re not but this book is definitely aimed at the people who love science.
- i was a little confused at points because i don’t get science but i still loved it.
- it was a little difficult to get into in the beginning but once you got into it you couldn’t help but laugh at abby’s jokes.
- a strong point of the book is abby’s relationship with her family. it was really compelling and i couldn’t help but want more of her family.