Title: The Ones We’re Meant to Find
Author: Joan He
Series: Standalone
Publish Date: May 4, 2021
Publisher: Roaring Brook
Format: Print, Hardcover
Goodreads Summary:
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, and it’s up to Cee to cross the ocean and find her.
In a world apart, 16-year-old STEM prodigy Kasey Mizuhara lives in an eco-city 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, and 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 nevertheless, she 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.
Review: And… no.
Wow. That summary did not describe the book I just read. It’s a great premise, I’ll give it that. And there are some ideas that could have been great! But they weren’t. What I just read was incredibly boring.
Kasey is a horrible character. She is your classic YA heroin, the “more than meets the eye” type. She is basically emotionless, and doesn’t seem to feel remorse when she messes with people. I believe I read in other reviews that she was supposed to be portrayed as autistic, and if so, I still think I missed something. She just didn’t work for me. (I honestly thought that she was a bot for like 99 percent of her POV.)
Cee, on the other hand, at least entertained me. Her plotline was weak, and honestly, she didn’t really have much to do in the story, but her voice was better. Even without her memories, she has a more compelling character.
The plot itself is twofold, talking place at two different points in time. As I said, Cee’s plot was very weak for the most part, which could have been tightened up in many places. Kasey’s plotline was larger, but also bared the blunt of the world building… which was lacking. I have more questions about what’s happening in the world that is in this story, all of which went completely unanswered.
The two male characters were very weak. The hinted at romance could have been omitted and nothing would have been lost. Especially between Cee and Hero. There was just something… off about some of the scenes they shared, and I’m not referring to the “big reveal”.
This book just didn’t click with me. I didn’t really think the plot was all that engaging, and the “payoff” at the end was weak at best, a copout at worst. It didn’t do it for me. And I’m kinda sad about it, because the cover art for this is beyond gorgeous.
Rating: 2/5
Goodreads Goal 11/52
(Quick note: I didn’t write a review for the 6th, 8th and 10th “books” I read this year, as they are the first three The Old Guard: Tales Through Time issues, which are 32 pages each. I decided I’ll just review the series as a whole when the final issue is released in September.)
