The Ones We’re Meant to Find

In alternating, timeline-shifting chapters, He (Descendant of the Crane) traces an expansive near-future narrative that centers Asian sisterhood and family. Three years prior to the novel’s start, Cee awakens on an abandoned island amnesiac, colorblind, and alone except for a bot. She recalls only the absence of her younger sister, Kay, and feeling an impulse to get off the island and find her. Now, Cee has finally constructed a boat that may give her the chance. Meanwhile, in the wake of climate disaster, the highest ranked humans—“calculated from the planetary impact” of their behavior and their ancestors’—have moved to eco-cities, “conducting nonessential activities in the holographic mode.” In one such city, Kasey Mizuhara, 16, daughter of an eco-city architect, considers the absence of her sister Celia, 18, recently lost at sea. Banned from science for previously breaking an international law, Kasey nevertheless pursues a lead to access her sister’s memories. Interweaving Cee’s immediate first-person voice and Kasey’s more removed third-person narration, He crafts an intricate, well-paced rumination on human nature, choice, and consequence. Ages 12–up. [em]Agent: John Cusick, Folio Jr./Folio Literary Management. (May) [/em]