Discover Top Posts Tagged with #towmtf

Read 3/7-3/11

Five Stars

I've waited a little bit after finishing The Ones We're Meant to Find hoping some coherent thoughts would find their way into my brain and it's just not happening. This book has left me speechless. It's no secret that I loved Joan' first novel, Descendant of the Crane and this book is just as good (maybe better but don't tell Hesina!) The genre is a bit different, more of dystopian sci-fi setting but there's still the classic Joan plot twists that left me screaming and some super sad scenes that brought out all of my tears.

This is primarily a book about sisters, Celia and Kasey. Cee has been stuck on an abandoned island with only an outdated robot for company. She's lost most of her memory but knows that she has a sister out in the world and is trying her best to get back to her. Kasey back home in eco-city, a floating metropolis designed to protect people from the decaying planet, has no idea what happened to her sister after a camera records her taking a boat out to sea more than three months prior. Kasey rules her life by logic and science and logic says that Celia should have died of dehydration or drowning after being missing for so long but she can't stop the hope that Celia will be found. Celia is the only one who could break through Kasey's stoicism. I loved the sisters so much, their relationship and characterization was so much more complex than the initial assumption of social butterfly and stoic loner.

Someone else said this book reminded them of a Studio Ghibli film and I could not agree more. A lot of Ghibli films focus on themes of environmentalism. In The Ones We're Meant to Find humanity has destroyed the planet, mega quakes are common occurrences, the water has become incredibly polluted, even the air is filled with toxic gas. The lucky few managed to make it to an eco-city, floating above most of the horrors that now plague the Earth. Space is tight in the eco-cities and there's simply not enough room for everyone on Earth, the governing bodies of the eco-cities have become desperate for ideas on how to save humanity. I was fascinated by all the examples of how what's currently being done to the planet can turn into these mega-disasters if nothing is done to course correct. Ghibli films also have beautiful quiet moments that let the larger story breathe. I found those same moments in this book, more so in the beginning before the twists get really crazy and start propelling the story but they were still there in a couple of scenes toward the end. This was a truly beautiful book and I cannot wait to hold the finished copy in my hands.