Chris Reed from www.nzbooklovers.co.nz reviewed "Everything to the Sea is a tender and emotionally turbulent debut from Hawaiian writer Alicia Upano about love, grief and the long work of rebuilding after catastrophe.....Upano’s prose is fluid and atmospheric, attentive to water, heat, bodies, buildings and silence. She writes with confidence about young adulthood as a period of self-invention, but also about the limits of reinvention when the past has not been mourned properly. Everything to the Sea is an accomplished debut, moving not because it insists on the endurance of love, but because it understands how much can be swept away before anyone learns what remains. "
A girl-meets-boy story with a difference by a major debut talent, set against the captivating backdrop of contemporary Hawaii: exploring love and loss, escape and return, disaster and rebuilding.
THIS IS HOW THE STORY OF JANE AND KENJI GOES.
Home in Hilo, Hawai'i for one final summer, Jane is working and saving for her senior year before she leaves her island town behind forever. At first, she doesn't remember Kenji. To Kenji, she's unforgettable- Janie, nose perpetually buried in her old high school sketchbooks. THEY WILL FALL IN LOVE.
Jane tells herself it's only a fling one perfect, carefree summer, on her way to achieving her dream of becoming an architect and moving to the continent. But as the days pass, the pair find themselves falling hard into first love. AND THEN EVERYTHING WILL VANISH.
Then tragedy strikes when a tsunami destroys much of Hilo, leaving both Jane and Kenji convulsed with grief. While Jane leaves, unable to look back, Kenji stays, bound by duty to rebuild their community. WHEN ALL IS LOST, HOW DO WE FIND OUR WAY HOME?
Seven years later, Jane and Kenji collide again and find that the past is not as easily laid to rest as they thought.
A decade-long story of home and belonging, destruction and renewal, betrayal and forgiveness, Everything to the Sea is an unforgettable love story - about what it means to rebuild a life worthy of what was lost.
Alicia Upano
Fiction: general and literary
Paperback, 320 pages
H: 232mm W: 152mm Spine: 28mm
Weight: 395 grams