Once again, Kitesai delivers a solid plot, excellent writing, satisfying character arc, and the kind of light touch on serious topics that leaves quiet echoes in your background thoughts for a long time afterwards.

Saltcrop is about the relationship between sisters. About the ways those relationships can bind and pinch, but also provide safety, resilience, and joy. It is also about generational trauma and the way that the same event can be experienced completely differently by multiple people. It’s about the devastating effects of climate change on people at the bottom, and the knock-on effects of poverty on physical and mental health. It also fulfills the classic sci-fi mandate to warn current-day readers of “days to come” if we don’t stand against the inevitable slide into corporate authoritarianism and global conglomerates. But it’s not preachy, don’t get me wrong.

It’s an excellent read. In all three Kitesai books I’ve read so far, I’ve been delighted with her ability to Tell A Story— that elusive gift to combine words and imagination in a way that takes the reader entirely out of their armchair and into the author’s world. Well done. Can’t wait to read more.

Amazing concept, but convoluted beyond belief. Trying too hard to have a particular style, which turns readers like me away who just want to read the story for what it is. The tense also absolutely threw me off.

Yume Kitasei’s Saltcrop is a quiet storm—gathering slowly, steadily, until it hits. Set in a haunting, dystopian future where oceans have swallowed the land and agriculture is balanced on the edge of collapse, the novel imagines a world where crops fail and new diseases can be fatal. But what truly elevates this story is not just its eerie vision of the future—it's the sisterly bond.

Skipper, Carmen, and Nora are three sisters with a relationship that ebbs and flows like the tides. When Nora—the eldest and a brilliant scientist—goes missing, Carmen and Skipper set out on a sweeping journey across land and sea to find her. What follows is not only a physical quest, but an emotional reflection. Kitasei's choice to weave in perspectives from all three sisters adds to the story.

The atmospheric tension is thick, and the drowned world Kitasei creates is both strange and beautiful. Saltcrop is epic, and it will haunt you long after the last page.

#Saltcrop #FlatironBooks #SpeculativeFiction #DystopianLit #yumekitasei

Deeply felt, well-written and unputdownable, SALTCROP is a fantastic read. Equal parts ecological thriller and intimate portrait of a family. Seaspray and corporate treachery, a beloved boat named Bumblebee, all the ways family accidentally defines us. Fantastic.

Kitasei has something to say about capitalism and climate change - in both this and “The Deep Sky” there is a clear message! The message has been different both times but it’s been there.

As someone with a glut of siblings, I loved this exploration of the depth and strength of sibling bonds. Even when the sisters didn’t understand each other or, really, like each other, there was a deep love and a commitment to do absolutely insane things for each other. That these insane things were happening while in a world where capitalism has driven economic and environmental disaster seems almost background.

A lot of heart (and a little body horror)!