ARC Review: The Ones We’re Meant to Find by Joan He

The Ones We’re Meant to Find by Joan He

YA Sci-Fi

Standalone

Publisher: Roaring Brook

Publication Date: 4 May 2021

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

---

Synopsis

One of the most twisty, surprising, engaging page-turner YAs you’ll read this year—We Were Liars meets Black Mirror, with a dash of Studio Ghibli.

Cee has been trapped on an abandoned island for three years without any recollection of how she arrived, or memories from her life prior. All she knows is that somewhere out there, beyond the horizon, she has a sister named Kay. Determined to find her, Cee devotes her days to building a boat from junk parts scavenged inland, doing everything in her power to survive until the day she gets off the island and reunites with her sister.

In a world apart, 16-year-old STEM prodigy Kasey Mizuhara is also living a life of isolation. The eco-city she calls home is one of eight levitating around the world, built for people who protected the planet―and now need protecting from it. With natural disasters on the rise due to climate change, eco-cities provide clean air, water, and shelter. Their residents, in exchange, must spend at least a third of their time in stasis pods, conducting business virtually whenever possible to reduce their environmental footprint. While Kasey, an introvert and loner, doesn’t mind the lifestyle, her sister Celia hated it. Popular and lovable, Celia much preferred the outside world. But no one could have predicted that Celia would take a boat out to sea, never to return.

Now it’s been three months since Celia’s disappearance, and Kasey has given up hope. Logic says that her sister must be dead. But as the public decries her stance, she starts to second guess herself and decides to retrace Celia’s last steps. Where they’ll lead her, she does not know. Her sister was full of secrets. But Kasey has a secret of her own. 

---

My Thoughts

I received a free e-ARC from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. 

The Ones We’re Meant to Find is Joan He’s second novel, and even though it is a completely different genre, I loved it as much as her first novel, Descendant of the Crane, because of the similarities. Joan He has this modus operandi that works so perfectly for me as a reader, and is probably going to make me a lifelong fan. 

First, she presents the reader with a mystery. A tantalising question, and a quest. In TOWMTF we’re given two, one for each main character. Kasey’s sister, Celia, has disappeared under mysterious circumstances, and she is driven to find out what happened to her. For Cee, who woke up on a deserted island, the mystery is what happened to her memory, and her quest is to find her sister, Kay. 

Next, the author lures you in with her seductive writing. It’s so fluid and easy to read, that you blink and an hour has gone by. She has this ability to make the atmosphere so evocative. Not only does the reader have a sense of what the characters are experiencing – the loss, the desperation, the anger – but she also makes the spaces they inhabit exude emotion – the loneliness of the island, the claustrophobia and complacence of the eco-city, the vast unendingness of the sea. The pacing of the first half is quite slow, and that may put some readers off initially, but it is very much setting everything up so the novel can take flight in the second half. 

Joan He places the reader in a world that is so detailed, yet expansive. You get the feeling that you are not only right there in the room with the characters, but also that you are part of a much greater world. To put it bluntly, this novel had two of my least favourite settings – a deserted island and the open ocean – and it didn’t matter. I still couldn’t get enough. 

I also really enjoyed the eco-city setting, and the ways society has had to change in order to survive. In this case, those who live in eco-cities live in very small quarters, and spend up to a third of their day in virtual reality pods, or holos, where they can interact with other people. We also get a peek at what is happening in the wider world, in those places where people are at the mercy of the planet we have destroyed.  

The Ones We’re Meant to Find was also thematically strong, weaving questions for the reader to ponder throughout the novel. It explores the impact of pollution and climate change on the world and its inhabitants, as well as the impact capitalism has a driver of environmentally destructive practices. It asks ‘who is responsible, and who deserves to survive?’ We are unable to look away from the plight of climate refugees, those who are affected most by economic and environmental choices made by those with greater privilege than themselves. It is an indictment against letting governments and corporations make decisions based on profit, and against our rejection of personal responsibility, and our apathy. It is also about love and sisterhood, and the choices we make. Choices that affect us as individuals, that affect those we love, and choices that affect the world we live in. 

I thought the plot was interesting, and provided a very strong foundation for Cee and Kasey’s emotional growth throughout the novel. There were a bunch of twists, which is what I love about He’s stories. My only issue was that I didn’t feel like some of them were foreshadowed enough (or at all, in one case.) I find immense satisfaction in picking up those breadcrumbs and following the trail, so that left me a little bereft. However, there was so much to love that I’m really not that upset. 

Finally, the quality that makes He’s books shine is her ability to make you feel connected to the characters, even if they aren’t the most likeable people. I felt connection to Cee because she’s easy to like, and she’s got emotional intelligence, but also felt connection to Kasey, even though she is a bit prickly and anti-social. This is the joy of reading a book by Joan He. The characters are so real, so multi-dimensional, that you can relate to them. He used an interesting technique, having Cee’s narrative in first person perspective, while Kasey’s chapter were in third person. As I continued through the book I started thinking how incredibly clever it was to do it that way, but alas, I cannot say much more than that without venturing into spoiler territory. 

These are the things that drew me into Joan’s first book, and why I will almost certainly read every book she writes after this one.