Everything to the Sea

 Loss is a concept that every human can understand.  It essentially is the essence of being human.  The mortality of man and living with that eventuality.  Everything to the Sea, by Alicia Upano is a new novel centered around the lives of many Hawaiian Islanders following the wake of a large tsunami. In the course of mere minutes, the people on the island of Hilo lose everything to the sea and must learn to live with the ultimate loss of family and home. Though the story is fiction, the fact that the island of Hilo Hawaii did suffer tsunamis in 1946 and 1960 makes the story real for the reader .

Two main characters, Jane and Kenji are young adults, enjoying a summer fling and staying on Oahu  when a tsunami caught their home island of Hilo unawares, killing their families and destroying much of their island.  Each deals with the tragedy and their grief in completely different ways. Kenji returns to face the devastation and rebuild, while Jane runs away to save her sanity and her remorse over not answering her mother's final phone call. The novel follows their lives as they weave together new worlds both together and apart and find forgiveness and love in the process. 

I was first drawn to Upano's novel by the setting and situation.  I have always harbored a fascination with earth processes and have found tsunamis compelling.  The extreme force of nature and the water is unfathomable to a land-locked Kansas girl.  The oceans and beaches along with the Hawaiian culture provides a rich basis for Upano's story telling and she does an outstanding job of making the story come to life for the reader.  I personally could connect to the book because I have recently faced loss of family members and feel the sting of the separation from them.  I have also been fortunate to visit Hawaii and experience some of the culture, so the story felt very authentic and real to me.  

Due to Upano's strong character development and her voice in her writing, I was drawn into the world she created from the first page and I rushed through the  story to learn what would happen to the characters, simply not able to put the story down until I had finished it. 

I strongly suggest reading Everything to the Sea, Alicia Upano's debut novel being published July 14th through William Morrow Publishers.  

  I want to thank NetGalley for the advance reader's copy of Everything to the Sea, in exchange for an honest review. 

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