WE CARRY THE SEA IN OUR HANDS by Janie Kim

Thank you to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for the opportunity to listen to this ARC audiobook. The narration by Michelle H. Lee was well done.

A beautifully written debut novel exploring family, adoption, belonging, memories, death, and grieving. The author takes on what it is like to be a female in the field of science and what they endure is exposed in this story. Some speculative science, as well as, real science is woven throughout this remarkable story. Hard to believe this is a debut and I can’t wait to see what she does next.

Abby Rodier was a “drop-box baby,” a Korean orphan whose mother could not take care of her and left her as an infant. Abby became a microbiologist researching origins of life in sea-slugs; a discovery was made while working in the lab that changes her course in life. After a tragic event, Abby’s world is turned upside down and throws her into a world of grief, apparitions, and compulsive behavior. Abby must try to find her true roots and make peace with her life.

Have you ever watched the tide come in? The most exciting part, a crest in the waves, lasts only for a moment. This is how I felt listening to this tale. There's a rich core but we only catch a glimpse in bursts and starts. I found it difficult to stay keyed in.

Abby Rodier, the lead, has such an exciting backdrop but little character herself. The "prose" I was promised is largely absent, although some turns of phrase struck me, such as one about memories like a Protean sea escaping through our fingers. We follow her rather long, meandering, and repetitive journey in the lab and around the world, alongside fragments of her imagination or memories or ... the critters lurking in her special cells?

The author is a Ph.D. student in biology, and you can really feel it. There was something a bit too perfunctory and clinical about the writing and the flow of the story. This is a debut novel, though, and from someone new to the craft, so let's keep that in mind.

I'm curious about what the author comes up with next.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Dreamscape Media for the free audiobook in exchange for my honest review. Michelle H. Lee narrates this story and does an excellent job!

This is such an intellectual and poetically written story about family and relationships, and the impact that trauma has on both. Honestly, I feel smarter after having read it! I now know what a sea slug is as well!!

Abby was left as an infant in a Korean church “drop-box”, and then abandoned by her adoptive mother years later when left at a youth hostel. Thankfully her bff, Iseul, and her family's adoption of Abby help her create a secure and safe family.

Fast-forward to today, Abby is a research biologist and Iseul is a journalist in the states. Their friendship is as strong as ever but like most adults they do have their secrets. After a tragic event, Abby's life spins out of control. How will she recover?

This character driven novel allows the reader to go alongside Abby as she navigates her life as shaped by her broken relationships and her need to feel that she belongs. I honestly have not read anything quite like the lyrical prose in this book that at the same time is do full of biological science! Not a word is wasted.

Highly recommend.

Hello bio-research nerds! Just to be clear, I love a good bit of fiction with a heavy dose of science especially when most is real, and a little is exaggerated, and Kim delivers. Combining a story of identity, loss, family, Korean foreign adoption, and research on sea slugs into a compelling narrative. Grief of multiple kinds is a central theme of this book, grief for a family never known, grief for an adopted family that should never have adopted, and when tragedy strikes grief around how someone fits into a found family. This book is interesting and compelling and while very sad in sections, it also holds onto hope. We even get one variation on a happy ending, that has nothing to do with a romantic relationship. This book even throws out a few jabs at the lack of labs and stories that fail the Bechdel test.

Lee’s command of the Korean that is sprinkled through the text as well as the science made this an audiobook I powered through. I just wanted to know what would happen next. Will the latest batch of sea slugs survive captivity? Is the main character’s cellular biology really that rare? Will science bring a family back together in so many ways? What are the connections between female genetics, trauma, and enhanced cognition?