The Ones We’re Meant to Find by Joan He (review)

Celia remembers almost nothing about her life except that she has a beloved sister, Kasey, and that she wants to leave the island where she is trapped and return to their home. She’s been stuck for years, relying on her wits to try to stay alive and build some sort of device that she can use to cross the ocean. Interspersed chapters focus on her sister, Kasey, who has long mourned the disappearance of Celia. A zippy pace challenges readers to keep up as surprising layers unfold—a sci-fi onion of sorts with quite the shocker of a core. The shifting perspective from Celia’s first-person narration to a third-person accounting of Kasey’s life places sympathy solidly with Celia; while Kasey struggles as the world literally falls apart around her due to relentless abuse of the planet, the reader knows Celia’s heart, which makes the eventual betrayal of her trust all the more devastating. Indeed, this is less about AI, total environmental disaster, or even survival than it is a melancholy, heartbreaking story of a young woman who loved her sister enough to survive years of horrors in order to get back to her, only to discover that things may not have been what they seemed. It’s painful stuff, beautifully written, and He gives that suffering the space it deserves in this reflective novel.