Janie Kim's intriguing debut novel, We Carry the Sea in Our Hands, joins the growing ranks of books about sea creatures--think Remarkably Bright Creatures, Venomous Lumpsucker. Abby Rodier is a 24-year-old California research scientist studying sea slugs for their "connections to the origins of complex life on Earth." She's just learned she was a "drop-box baby," meaning she was surrendered into a box attached to the wall of a church in Seoul. She figured out in fourth grade she was adopted--neither her Korean mother nor her Scottish-heritage-way-back father had widow's peaks: "that was how I learned that biology can be so exquisitely, unrelentingly precise." Abandoned soon thereafter by both adoptive parents, Abby was claimed by her best friend Iseul's family as their own, forever. Over the following years, Abby chose a "self-inflicted purgatory" of not knowing about her birth--until now. Science, she's convinced, will provide all the answers. Along the way, she'll also prove why women are smarter.
Kim, a molecular biologist pursuing a Stanford University Ph.D., transforms her undergraduate Princeton University senior thesis into a fascinating bildungsroman. Double-take-deserving phrasing ("chimeric 'Konglish,' " "Mosaic of Exasperation") and pointed descriptions ("The weekend is like picking out a footpath through broken glass"), however, aren't quite enough to ignore narrative imbalances: more storytelling, less drawn-out explanatory science would undoubtedly have yielded greater resonating impact. Abby's yearning, nevertheless, promises intriguing tension and delivers emotional rewards, most particularly about creating--and preserving--families. --Terry Hong