I’ll be honest, I did not expect to like this book.
Why? Science.
There is a LOT of science in here. I mean, the main character is a 24-year-old graduate student studying the origins of life…L.O.T.S. of science.

But there is so much more in this book than a biology lecture. There is love of family, both lost and found. There is a longing for identity, for belonging, for acceptance. There is loss. There is overcoming. And it is good stuff! Beautifully written - almost poetic.

Abby was a “drop-box baby” born in Korea, adopted by one family but discarded, then by another family and loved. As a post-doc student in California, a series of lab experiments (and finally accepting the deep longings she has long buried) propels her on a search for her birth mother. The tone of the book is sad in the telling, yet somehow triumphant at the same time.

About all that science – admittedly, there were moments my eyes glazed over, but surprisingly, I didn’t NOT like it (go figure, from the lady who’s brain is decidedly right-sided!). Chalk it up to Janie Kim’s poetic writing: she made biology sound beautiful, and managed to deftly weave the cellular and bacterial lessons seamlessly into the narrative.

I listened to the audiobook and the narrator, Michelle H. Lee, could not have been more perfect. Her even, soothing, melodic reading was a flawless fit for Abby’s character.

Thank you to Alcove Press, NetGalley, and author Janie Kim for the complimentary copy! It was my pleasure to write this candid review.

Abby, a Korean ‘drop-box’ baby who finds herself in the adoption system twice, immerses herself in sea slugs as a microbiologist. We follow her journey in tracking her birth parents, uncovering a new discovery, and grappling with unexpected tragedy. This was such a complex and layered story about identity, family, relationships, origins, science, adoption, grief, and more. Though I enjoyed Kim's storytelling, I got lost in the plot and themes. Overall, this was a reflective, raw debut.

Thanks NetGalley and Alcove Press for the arc!

In a Nutshell: A literary fiction debut that encompasses several themes and subgenres within its plot. Complex, chaotic, compelling! The first half left me befuddled, but the second half cleverly brought all the arcs together. Recommended, but it would help if you are a science nerd.

Plot Preview:
Twenty-four-year old Abby has only recently found out that she is a “drop-box baby”, a Korean orphan abandoned as an infant. She has no clue about her birth parents. When her adoptive parents – American father and Korean mother – struggle with their marriage, Abby was yet again thrown into the foster care system, only to be adopted again by a Korean-origin couple, whose daughter Iseul ends up as Abby’s best friend.
Now, all these years later, Abby works with sea slugs, using them to research the origins of life. She also decides to look for her birth parents. Meanwhile, Iseul is an investigative journalist whose career path and love for her terminally sick brother leads her towards black market medicine. One event changes the trajectory of Abby’s personal and professional life.
The story comes to us in Abby’s first-person perspective.


Bookish Yays:
👌🏻 The fact that Abby was adopted twice, and each adoption was different from the other, makes the adoption angle an interesting one.
👌🏻 The way Abby established parallels between her “origins of life” research and her own life story i.e. the origin of her life, is nicely brought out.
👌🏻 Sea slugs get much focus in the narrative, thanks to Abby’s research as well as Iseul’s latest assignment using sea slugs. The facts were fascinating!
👌🏻 There is plenty of science-y stuff in the book, even beyond slug facts. The insight into lab culture, the gender discrimination in STEM fields, the importance of grants and promotions in research – all get highlighted realistically. The author is a biology PhD student at Stanford University, which is probably why it all sounds genuine. There is also a lot of technical scientific data, which non-nerds might not enjoy so much but I loved. (Nerd Alert!) I found everything related to science fabulous!
👌🏻 As Abby, her first adoptive mother, and her later adoptive parents are Korean, we get a glimpse of many Korean beliefs and rituals. There is also a fair number of Korean words in the plot, which adds to the authenticity and complexity.
👌🏻 This is a character-focussed literary work, so the pacing, though slower, gives us much to ponder over. The prose is also lyrical, but not so much as would feel over the top.
👌🏻 The author’s note, which explains in detail how much of the science in the book is fact and how much a fabrication. Mind-blowing!

Bookish Mixed Bags:
🤞🏻 Abby’s character isn’t so appealing at the start as she is a perfect specimen of her age. Many of her thoughts are self-absorbed, and it takes some time for her to stop moaning about her life and grow a spine. That said, she’s a interestingly complex character for the lead role as it is tough to understand if what she experiences is real or hallucinatory.
🤞🏻 The secondary characters are interesting, but except for Iseul, most don’t have much depth. They pop in only to the extent needed, so we get just a limited look at their personality. I would have loved a dual narrative with a second perspective coming from Iseul; she seemed fascinating. But I do understand why this wasn’t possible as the story was essentially Abby’s.
🤞🏻 The overloaded ‘kitchen sink’ of themes exists in this debut as well. I initially felt like the story was bombarding me with core themes: sea slug research, search for birth parents, Iseul’s investigative work, black market medicine, cancer treatment for one secondary character, a tiny thread of magical realism, Korean culture, parental abandonment, adoption issues, gender discrimination, racial discrimination, suicide, sex trafficking, found family, intergenerational trauma,… The plot sprung in so many distinct directions at once that I was befuddled about the exact point of the story. But to my utter surprise, the author successfully manages to unite most of the key points into a single multi-hued kaleidoscopic strand by the end of the book.
🤞🏻 The plot isn’t linear, so Abby’s narrative also feels a bit meandering as she goes back and forth in the timeline depending on where her memories take her. These are clearly marked in the narrative, so there’s no confusion about the time frame of the events. But the frequent time hopping, especially at the start, is tedious.

Bookish Nays:
👎🏻 There’s a lot of inner monologue at the start, which makes Abby sound even whinier. This does peter out as the book progresses, but it is still present throughout.

🎧 The Audiobook Experience:
The audiobook, clocking at a little more than 8 hours, is narrated by Michelle H. Lee. I didn’t end up a big fan of her narration. Her enunciation is good, but somehow, her voice just rubbed me off the wrong way. (This, of course, might not be the case for all listeners.) As it is, the first person had a lot of inner monologues, but the narrator’s pitch made those ramblings grate on my nerves at times.
I might have appreciated this book better had I actually read it because there was just so much happening! Of course, the narrative is a single-timeline, single-perspective story, so the confusion isn’t about who is speaking or when, but about keeping track of the myriad arcs. Audio newbies, better stick to reading.


All in all, this is a very intelligent debut that takes multiple little stories surrounding one character and weaves them into a fairly cohesive narrative. The first quarter progressed so randomly that I had given up hope of this book being a good read, especially combined with Abby’s first-person waffling. Rarely has a book proven my initial rating guess so spectacularly wrong!

Recommended to literary fiction readers with a scientific bent of mind. The start will require your patience, but the ending makes the journey worthwhile.

3.75 stars.

My thanks to Dreamscape Media for providing the ALC of “We Carry the Sea in Our Hands” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the audiobook.

4 stars

This was a beautifully written book. I love to read books about women in STEM. There is a lot of science in this book but it is done well and is very understandable. This book was so heart touching and heart breaking! I loved every minute of it.

Thank you to Dreamscape Media and Net Galley for the opportunity to listen to this audiobook.

This book really warmed my stem loving heart ❤ . It was a nice introduction to science fiction and understanding the science was not that hard. The journey of self-discovery was beautiful and I could relate to Abby in so many ways. The narrator was amazing and truly enhanced the reading experience.

This one was a beautifully written exploration of trauma, grief and search for identity. I loved it all the more for how realistically it approached science and the scientific discoveries. While I don’t think you need to have a science background to enjoy this one (all the introduced concepts get explained really well, and the speculative science develops organically), I related to the countless experiments that failed and the parts on making your way in academia. Kim took some unique approaches with the story and I was delighted to see how everything came together.

I enjoyed this one as an audiobook and appreciated how Michelle H. Lee brought the story to life. I thought the plot and the details were easy to follow (although I am very familiar with listening to biological sciences). Kim wrote this during her undergrad years and I’d be really curious to see what comes from her next.

This book was quite ambitious, incorporating a great deal of both real and theoretical studies, but it all comes together flawlessly. It handles such difficult and sensitive subjects with grace and subtlety. The writing is exquisite; it has a poetic, almost mystical feel.

A compelling story is created by combining science, an examination of the positive effects of sad occurrences, and the main character Abby's search for her biological mother. It was a fascinating approach to present this book, and I really liked how it kept coming back to science, whether it was true or just made up for the plot. To be honest, I have not come across any writing as poetic and scientifically dense as that found in this book!

The narrator, Michelle H. Lee, was excellent. She embodies everything Abby is in perfect harmony. The narrative is incredibly calming, much like the book's content, and it had a lasting impression on me.

I'm excited to read more from Janie Kim as her evident storytelling abilities are amazing and I can't wait to see more of her works.

We carry the sea in our hands
Narrated by Michelle H. Lee

This book has my heart, whole. I requested it for the title and the cover. I had read synopsis but what I did not expect was the extraordinarily beautiful prose. The writing is so elegant and beautiful that I just kept on going.

This book shouldn't be read for the story, even though story is also a good one but prose makes it an amazing experience.

The narrator has done a tremendously good jobs at narration. Like the prose of the book, the narration is too soothing and left an everlasting effect on me.

I would not suggest this book to everyone, only to those who enjoy the lyrical prose that leaves reader mesmerized by it. It is not for everyone.

Let me come back to this review again when I'm about to collect all my quotes from the book.

Book rating : 4.5 stars
Audiobook rating : 5 stars

One of my favourite audiobooks for sure.

Thank you Netgally and dreamscape media for the beautiful ALC in exchange of an honest review.

Wow wow wow! Such a great book! It's written beautifully and covers such deep and emotional topics with nuance and grace. The main character was relatable and very well narrated. I loved this book, and I loved the combination of fantasy and science.

I enjoyed this read, family bonds and science, certainly a fun listen. Thanks to netgalley for the audiobook copy!

Such a beautiful story. the book is amazing with its beautiful prose and I actually loved all the sciency stuff the book had to offer.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves mutlcutural fiction reads.

The narrator was just ok for me and I bought a hardcover to read instead.

thank you dreamscape media

4 stars

We Carry the Sea in Our Hands by Janie Kim and narrated by Michelle H. Lee was an absolutely fascinating listen and tbh, due to the content, I am likely to listen again with the book as it is so full of information that I don't want to miss anything!

Absolutely recommend if you love science and scientific analogy to navigate life

Thank you to NetGalley, Dreamscape Media, the authorJanie Kim and narrator Michelle H Lee for this ALC. My review is left voluntarily and all opinions are my own

We Carry the Sea in Our Handsis a beautifully written story about feeling lost and finding ourselves. Abby is a post-doc working at a lab researching the origin of sea slugs. She was born in Korea and adopted in the US, but her parents' marriage fell apart when she was young, and she was adopted by her best friends' parents. Abby begins investigating the origin of her own life, with very little information to go on other than that she was a "drop-box baby" in Korea. Overall, the tone is sad and a little meandering, but the content is so fascinating. Abby sees things in a scientific way, so it made the metaphors so unique. I listened to the audiobook, which is perfectly narrated by Michelle H. Lee. She has such a wonderful tone and calming delivery, which seemed the right choice given the book's narrator.

Thank you NetGalley and the publishers for providing this ebook/audiobook. All thoughts are my own.

This was a beautifully heartbreaking story that had me thinking about all the real life people this may have happened to.
I’m a sucker for books about women in science, too. So this was a lovely read.

what a discovery !
this book is definitely in my favorite-of-all-time books now
the facts about science throughout the story is everything to me (as a person who seeks facts about everything on anything).
the main character is deeply fleshed out
just read it !

thank you to net galley for the copy

[alc review]
Thank you to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for providing an alc in exchange for an honest review.
We Carry the Sea in Our Hands releases July 9, 2024

At its core, this debut novel is about origin stories. We see this through not only the scientific research of sea slugs, but the main character’s search for her birth parents after learning that she was an adopted drop-box baby.

This ended up being more scientific than I was expecting, but the themes surrounding family and grief were conveyed really well.
I loved the original elements that Janie Kim brought to the story through endosymbiosis, and I’m eager to see what she writes next!

I'll honestly admit that I'm still not sure what I just read.

I listened to the audio version which was adequately read by Michelle H Lee although she did have a tendency to get a bit dramatic and breathy at times which I'm not a fan of. Otherwise she has a good clear voice and the characters were clearly defined except for the scientist who came from Manchester but had a pronounced Scottish accent for some reason.

The story, on the other hand, seemed neither one thing nor the other. Was it a fictionalised scientific book about finding one's parents or a groundbreaking new part of women's bodies (fiction obviously). Or was it a book about a woman who felt marginalised and lonely trying to come to terms with being abandoned by two sets of parents and a tragic death?

Either way I simply couldn't find anything to like in the protagonist, Abby Rodier. She managed to make every tragic occurrence about herself and fumbled about making ridiculous decisions that made her feel more excluded than she actually was. I'm afraid she really got on my nerves hence the very low score.

I also admit to being utterly baffled by the actual science, the pseudoscience and the fictional science that is the mainstay of this novel. I still haven't one clue what I was supposed to get from it or what difference it was supposed to have made apart from being great for the few women who had this genetic predisposition.

Not for me.

Thankyou to Netgalley and Dreamscape Media for the audio advance review copy.

Gorgeous cover and title. This is a book for readers who are science geeks. Which is decidedly not me. That said, I really liked the reader and enjoyed the story. I struggled at times to keep people and experiments and quite definitely the science, straight. At times it felt like historical fiction and at others it leaned more toward fantasy. I'll be curious to hear what everyone thinks of this one.

I absolutely loved this book! I loved the way that Kim wove science throughout the book in the coolest way! I am interested in adoption stories after having a sister find me in my 40s. I am interested in the ways that being adopted can affect people even when they are adopted into loving homes. This book gives some perspectives on that. Her writing about grief was also top-notch. This book was lovely and sad and beautiful. A solid 5 star read. I can't wait to hear more from Kim. What an amazing debut!

Thank you to Netgally and Dreamscape Media for an advance audio copy of this book

A young Korean woman, Abby Rodger, who was a drop box baby ( abandoned by her mother in Korea) , and initially raised by parents who ultimately abandoned her once more, eventually finds her home with the family of her best friend Iseul. When life takes a tragic turn , Abby begins to think about her birth mom and how it might be possible to connect with her. Sounds like a good plot ? But there’s more. So much more. Abby is a marine biologist working with sea slugs and bacteria. Anything and everything I never wanted to know about these creatures is slowly and painstakingly detailed word upon word, paragraph upon paragraph, page upon page. Sea slugs permeate everything in great academic detail. I felt like I was drowning in a sea of scientific information interspersed with Abby’s trials and tribulations. I was unable to connect with anything and am still wondering what this was about and why so many other readers raved about this book.
I listened to the audio version which was gifted to me by NetGalley and Dreamscape Mefia in exchange for my review.