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Awake in the Floating City
An utterly transporting debut novel about the unexpected relationship between an artist and the 130-year-old woman she cares for—two of the last people living in a flooded San Francisco of the future, the home neither is ready to leave.
“An astonishing work of art…This is the kind of book that changes you, that leaves you seeing more vividly, and living more fully, in its wake.” —Rachel Khong, author of Real Americans
Bo knows she should go. Years of rain have drowned the city and almost everyone else has fled. Her mother was carried away in a storm surge and ever since, Bo has been alone. She is stalled: an artist unable to make art, a daughter unable to give up the hope that her mother may still be alive. Half-heartedly, she allows her cousin to plan for her escape—but as the departure day approaches, she finds a note slipped under her door from Mia, an elderly woman who lives in her building and wants to hire Bo to be her caregiver. Suddenly, Bo has a reason to stay.
Mia can be prickly, and yet still she and Bo forge a connection deeper than any Bo has had with a client. Mia shares stories of her life that pull Bo back toward art, toward the practice she thought she’d abandoned. Listening to Mia, allowing her memories to become entangled with Bo’s own, she’s struck by how much history will be lost as the city gives way to water. Then Mia’s health turns, and Bo determines to honor their disappearing world and this woman who’s brought her back to it, a project that teaches her the lessons that matter most: how to care, how to be present, how to commemorate a life and a place, soon to be lost forever.
“An astonishing work of art…This is the kind of book that changes you, that leaves you seeing more vividly, and living more fully, in its wake.” —Rachel Khong, author of Real Americans
Bo knows she should go. Years of rain have drowned the city and almost everyone else has fled. Her mother was carried away in a storm surge and ever since, Bo has been alone. She is stalled: an artist unable to make art, a daughter unable to give up the hope that her mother may still be alive. Half-heartedly, she allows her cousin to plan for her escape—but as the departure day approaches, she finds a note slipped under her door from Mia, an elderly woman who lives in her building and wants to hire Bo to be her caregiver. Suddenly, Bo has a reason to stay.
Mia can be prickly, and yet still she and Bo forge a connection deeper than any Bo has had with a client. Mia shares stories of her life that pull Bo back toward art, toward the practice she thought she’d abandoned. Listening to Mia, allowing her memories to become entangled with Bo’s own, she’s struck by how much history will be lost as the city gives way to water. Then Mia’s health turns, and Bo determines to honor their disappearing world and this woman who’s brought her back to it, a project that teaches her the lessons that matter most: how to care, how to be present, how to commemorate a life and a place, soon to be lost forever.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published May 13, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 635 reviews
November 25, 2024
Quiet, slow book celebrating the beauty of life
Set in approximately 2050, San Francisco is under water. Bo, whose mother went missing two years ago, is planning to move elsewhere when she receives a note from Mia, a 130-year-old woman needing some help around the house.
There isn’t one perfect character in this book or rather all of the characters are perfectly imperfect.
Also, this book begs for a book club. Because while Bo seemed to judge Beverly (Mia’s daughter) at times, Bo herself didn’t always get along with her own mother. Family relationships are often complex, and Awake in the Floating City did a spectacular job conveying that.
For those of you who read the book, what do you think is next for Bo?
*Thanks, NetGalley, for a free copy of this book in exchange for my fair and unbiased opinion.
The Green Light at the End of the Dock (How much I spent):
Electronic Text – Free/Nada/Zilch through publisher
Hardcover Text – Pre-ordered through Flyleaf in Grosse Pointe Farms for $28
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Set in approximately 2050, San Francisco is under water. Bo, whose mother went missing two years ago, is planning to move elsewhere when she receives a note from Mia, a 130-year-old woman needing some help around the house.
There isn’t one perfect character in this book or rather all of the characters are perfectly imperfect.
Also, this book begs for a book club. Because while Bo seemed to judge Beverly (Mia’s daughter) at times, Bo herself didn’t always get along with her own mother. Family relationships are often complex, and Awake in the Floating City did a spectacular job conveying that.
For those of you who read the book, what do you think is next for Bo?
*Thanks, NetGalley, for a free copy of this book in exchange for my fair and unbiased opinion.
The Green Light at the End of the Dock (How much I spent):
Electronic Text – Free/Nada/Zilch through publisher
Hardcover Text – Pre-ordered through Flyleaf in Grosse Pointe Farms for $28
Connect With Me!
Blog Threads BookTube Facebook Insta My Bookstore at Pango
May 21, 2025
getting a little scared at how many recent releases take place in a flooded dystopian future...what do you guys know.
besides that, this did have a touching concept: a caregiver, bo, and her final patient, mia, building a relationship as their city clears of people and fills with water.
the problem is that it's 320 pages long.
while touching initially, this book drags. bo makes the same decision and reverses it four times. her slowly progressing memorial artwork and mia's slowly regressing health take up hundreds of pages. dialogue feels redundant and so do even climactic moments, because they feel so interchangeable.
i liked a lot about this, which is why it was such a bummer to be so frustrated by the end.
bottom line: this is not a long book, but it is too long.
(thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
besides that, this did have a touching concept: a caregiver, bo, and her final patient, mia, building a relationship as their city clears of people and fills with water.
the problem is that it's 320 pages long.
while touching initially, this book drags. bo makes the same decision and reverses it four times. her slowly progressing memorial artwork and mia's slowly regressing health take up hundreds of pages. dialogue feels redundant and so do even climactic moments, because they feel so interchangeable.
i liked a lot about this, which is why it was such a bummer to be so frustrated by the end.
bottom line: this is not a long book, but it is too long.
(thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
April 14, 2025
I won't lie. This was a 2 star read for me, but I'm bumping it to 3 stars because it was well-written and I really liked the ending.
This wasn't what I expected it to be. I thought it'd be more about survival in a climate ravaged dystopian San Francisco, but it was mostly about human relationships and the importance of family history.
This story would've worked on its own without the cli-fi setting. While it was cool to read about people surviving on the top floors of buildings and skyscrapers, I didn't think it was all that necessary to the story.
I admired the caregiver relationship between the FMC, Bo, and Mia. It's a found family type of story with a younger character and an elderly character. I really thought it was well done and showed the strength of human connection, even in the face of a climate apocalypse.
And if you're a lover of modern art, the ending with its very detailed descriptions of Bo's very moving artwork was perfection. I wish I could say the same for the rest of the novel, but it is what it is.
I'd recommend if you're into lit fic about human relationships. Not so much if you're more of a SFF reader like I am.
Thank you to Pantheon and NetGalley for this arc.
This wasn't what I expected it to be. I thought it'd be more about survival in a climate ravaged dystopian San Francisco, but it was mostly about human relationships and the importance of family history.
This story would've worked on its own without the cli-fi setting. While it was cool to read about people surviving on the top floors of buildings and skyscrapers, I didn't think it was all that necessary to the story.
I admired the caregiver relationship between the FMC, Bo, and Mia. It's a found family type of story with a younger character and an elderly character. I really thought it was well done and showed the strength of human connection, even in the face of a climate apocalypse.
And if you're a lover of modern art, the ending with its very detailed descriptions of Bo's very moving artwork was perfection. I wish I could say the same for the rest of the novel, but it is what it is.
I'd recommend if you're into lit fic about human relationships. Not so much if you're more of a SFF reader like I am.
Thank you to Pantheon and NetGalley for this arc.
June 15, 2025
3.5, rounded up. This is the second literary novel about a near-future drowning American city I've read this year, after Tea Obreht's magic-realist The Morningside. Susanna Kwan takes an entirely different tack, submerging the mid-20th-century Chinese-American immigrant experience beneath the climate apocalypse of the mid-21st century.
Bo, a blocked visual artist, mourning the recent unresolved loss of her mother, takes a job as a home healthcare aide for Mia, a 130-year-old woman whose narcissistic daughter has abandoned her. No surprises here that the two of them form a temporary family, as Mia shares her recollections of her deep and rich life experiences, which take her from a village in wartime Guangdong to Hong Kong to postwar Chinatown and the Outer Sunset. Meanwhile, Bo rekindles her passion for art-making by using drones and holograms to project a memorial to Mia, using skyscrapers as screens.
Oddly, it's the futuristic narrative of submerged high-rises in a depopulated San Francisco that seems more lived-in and realistically-rendered than the well-researched archival historical reconstructions (perhaps that was Kwan's point all along). The main characters are complex and thorny, and their moving moments of connection felt earned, but the secondary characters (mostly male) were flatly-drawn. Kwan's prose is elegant and poetic, but that didn't fully compensate for narrative problems with pacing and longueurs, and mechanical plot complications.
Thanks to Netgalley and Pantheon for providing an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.
Bo, a blocked visual artist, mourning the recent unresolved loss of her mother, takes a job as a home healthcare aide for Mia, a 130-year-old woman whose narcissistic daughter has abandoned her. No surprises here that the two of them form a temporary family, as Mia shares her recollections of her deep and rich life experiences, which take her from a village in wartime Guangdong to Hong Kong to postwar Chinatown and the Outer Sunset. Meanwhile, Bo rekindles her passion for art-making by using drones and holograms to project a memorial to Mia, using skyscrapers as screens.
Oddly, it's the futuristic narrative of submerged high-rises in a depopulated San Francisco that seems more lived-in and realistically-rendered than the well-researched archival historical reconstructions (perhaps that was Kwan's point all along). The main characters are complex and thorny, and their moving moments of connection felt earned, but the secondary characters (mostly male) were flatly-drawn. Kwan's prose is elegant and poetic, but that didn't fully compensate for narrative problems with pacing and longueurs, and mechanical plot complications.
Thanks to Netgalley and Pantheon for providing an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.
September 1, 2025
This story was just ok for me unfortunately. It didn’t hit any of those “pull me in” moments.
This setting takes place in a near‑future San Francisco that is perpetually submerged by rain and rising seas where the residents cling to high‑rise rooftops amid the decay. At the heart of the novel is Bo, an artist paralyzed by grief after her mother's disappearance, who finds purpose again when she becomes the reluctant caregiver to Mia, a feisty 130‑year‑old neighbor.
The novel is a slow‑burn for sure and feels overly done as the story remained stubbornly still…aka, it had me loosing interest. Mostly about climate change and the FMC’s emotional dissection, I felt like I was walking through mud at times. Just not for me.
Thank you to the publisher for the advance review copy in exchange for an honest review.
This setting takes place in a near‑future San Francisco that is perpetually submerged by rain and rising seas where the residents cling to high‑rise rooftops amid the decay. At the heart of the novel is Bo, an artist paralyzed by grief after her mother's disappearance, who finds purpose again when she becomes the reluctant caregiver to Mia, a feisty 130‑year‑old neighbor.
The novel is a slow‑burn for sure and feels overly done as the story remained stubbornly still…aka, it had me loosing interest. Mostly about climate change and the FMC’s emotional dissection, I felt like I was walking through mud at times. Just not for me.
Thank you to the publisher for the advance review copy in exchange for an honest review.
September 23, 2024
The setting of this story is so unique. I knew I had to read this.
Perpetual rainfall has flooded future San Francisco. Many have fled north but the inhabitants that remain, have adapted to the torrent downpour and the elevated water levels that have deemed land a thing of the past. Habitation has been reserved for the higher levels of apartment buildings, with all commerce happening on the roof of these structures, connecting each together by series of bridges.
This novel explores the relationship between Mia and her caregiver, Bo. At times, the pacing was slow but I understand the author’s decision. It was nice to subtly see the two women grow into each other. The relationship between the two characters matures to a touching conclusion.
I understand Bo’s regret after the loss of her mother and her desire to record Mia’s history. I wish I could sit with my late father and transcribe his life from his own words. I utterly yearn for that. I understand being drained creatively and also the grief of losing a parent.
“I guess,” she began slowly, “I guess I’ve been missing my mother.” “Hmm.” Mia sounded skeptical. But then after a minute she said, “You wanted her for longer.” “Yes,” Bo said, and time crowded her. “But you get the time you get.”
Thank you, NetGalley, for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Perpetual rainfall has flooded future San Francisco. Many have fled north but the inhabitants that remain, have adapted to the torrent downpour and the elevated water levels that have deemed land a thing of the past. Habitation has been reserved for the higher levels of apartment buildings, with all commerce happening on the roof of these structures, connecting each together by series of bridges.
This novel explores the relationship between Mia and her caregiver, Bo. At times, the pacing was slow but I understand the author’s decision. It was nice to subtly see the two women grow into each other. The relationship between the two characters matures to a touching conclusion.
I understand Bo’s regret after the loss of her mother and her desire to record Mia’s history. I wish I could sit with my late father and transcribe his life from his own words. I utterly yearn for that. I understand being drained creatively and also the grief of losing a parent.
“I guess,” she began slowly, “I guess I’ve been missing my mother.” “Hmm.” Mia sounded skeptical. But then after a minute she said, “You wanted her for longer.” “Yes,” Bo said, and time crowded her. “But you get the time you get.”
Thank you, NetGalley, for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.
January 8, 2025
I hate to rate this so low, but this just did not do anything for me. I spent about 80% of this book waiting for something, anything, interesting to happen. It's not that the writing was bad per se, I just found it so boring. I couldn't bring myself to care about what Bo was doing. I guess I thought it'd be more about living in and trying to escape the drowning city. Really this should have been a DNF for me but the fantastic reviews kept me trudging on. I wish I had more positive things to say.
Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.
Thank you NetGalley for the ARC.
June 27, 2025
"Her own searching returned to her now in surges, those hopeless, hopeful days, streets churning with water, the ocean everywhere. She'd never stop, she wouldn't; a memory couldn't be drowned."
Set in approximately 2050 in a flooded San Francisco, Bo, a caregiver for the elderly, and Mia, a supercentenarian who's without family in the area, form an unexpectedly close friendship in their city surrounded by water.
Torn between her desire to stay in the city where she was raised, where she lost her mom in a large flood, and leaving at the urgency of her family, Bo has made a living out of caring for the elderly. In a city now of rooftops rather than streets, of boats and skywalks rather than cars and bridges, there are many elderly in the city, some refusing to go and some with no where to turn. But Bo's desire to stay, outweighs her desire to do as her own family says. For many years, Bo struggled as an artist, but with the changing city around her and the loss of her mother, she's drifted away from art and is focused instead on simply surviving.
Mia, about to celebrate her 130th birthday, is a little grumbly but more than a little lonely. Having Bo suddenly in her life has made her start to cautiously open up. And Bo listens with increasing dedication as Mia shares long stretches of her personal history. What springs up between them is the kind of closeness that could only have come at the end for Mia — whose life has been long but was often difficult.
Kwan has penned a stunningly beautiful and measured debut. She weaves Mia's memories into a tapestry of what Bo knows about the city and its rich history, and has Bo stitch in her own experiences alongside. Bo finds dawning inspiration in Mia's story and begins work on an art project to honor this remarkable woman and the extraordinary life she's lived, bringing her own self back into the light of life in the process.
I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This affected neither my opinion of the book nor the content of my review.
Set in approximately 2050 in a flooded San Francisco, Bo, a caregiver for the elderly, and Mia, a supercentenarian who's without family in the area, form an unexpectedly close friendship in their city surrounded by water.
Torn between her desire to stay in the city where she was raised, where she lost her mom in a large flood, and leaving at the urgency of her family, Bo has made a living out of caring for the elderly. In a city now of rooftops rather than streets, of boats and skywalks rather than cars and bridges, there are many elderly in the city, some refusing to go and some with no where to turn. But Bo's desire to stay, outweighs her desire to do as her own family says. For many years, Bo struggled as an artist, but with the changing city around her and the loss of her mother, she's drifted away from art and is focused instead on simply surviving.
Mia, about to celebrate her 130th birthday, is a little grumbly but more than a little lonely. Having Bo suddenly in her life has made her start to cautiously open up. And Bo listens with increasing dedication as Mia shares long stretches of her personal history. What springs up between them is the kind of closeness that could only have come at the end for Mia — whose life has been long but was often difficult.
Kwan has penned a stunningly beautiful and measured debut. She weaves Mia's memories into a tapestry of what Bo knows about the city and its rich history, and has Bo stitch in her own experiences alongside. Bo finds dawning inspiration in Mia's story and begins work on an art project to honor this remarkable woman and the extraordinary life she's lived, bringing her own self back into the light of life in the process.
I received this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This affected neither my opinion of the book nor the content of my review.
December 10, 2024
This probably would have been a good short story.
This is the most boring novel. It wanders hither and thither, in no hurry to get to a point, any point. Bo’s reasons for staying in the flooded city make no sense when she can barely find food to eat, and the option to move north with her family is right there for her. I became very angry with her for not leaving, especially the second time. Her poor cousin bent over backwards to help her, and she basically spit in his face each time.
I kept confusing "Bo" and "Mia" for some reason. This is set in the near future, and Mia spent a lot of time reminiscing about the way things used to be, and I wished she was actually from my generation so that I could recognize the world she described, but it didn't seem that way.
Because of the amount of detail given to Bo's art, I suspect that artwork was the actual impetus for writing this novel. Sadly, it was the least interesting part of the story. It's a neat idea, and if I saw an art installation like that I might be spellbound, but it's not very interesting to read about. At some point I just started skimming pages when it was describing Bo's art. I feel bad about that, because I can tell a lot of heart went into it, but it just didn't connect with me.
I couldn't help comparing this book to Private Rites, which I just finished (I didn’t like that book much either, but it was better than this one). Both are books set in the near future, with endless rain, in flooded cities. Is endless rain really scientifically possible?
My thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for the gift of this free e-book for my review. I'm sorry I don't have a better review to write.
This is the most boring novel. It wanders hither and thither, in no hurry to get to a point, any point. Bo’s reasons for staying in the flooded city make no sense when she can barely find food to eat, and the option to move north with her family is right there for her. I became very angry with her for not leaving, especially the second time. Her poor cousin bent over backwards to help her, and she basically spit in his face each time.
I kept confusing "Bo" and "Mia" for some reason. This is set in the near future, and Mia spent a lot of time reminiscing about the way things used to be, and I wished she was actually from my generation so that I could recognize the world she described, but it didn't seem that way.
Because of the amount of detail given to Bo's art, I suspect that artwork was the actual impetus for writing this novel. Sadly, it was the least interesting part of the story. It's a neat idea, and if I saw an art installation like that I might be spellbound, but it's not very interesting to read about. At some point I just started skimming pages when it was describing Bo's art. I feel bad about that, because I can tell a lot of heart went into it, but it just didn't connect with me.
I couldn't help comparing this book to Private Rites, which I just finished (I didn’t like that book much either, but it was better than this one). Both are books set in the near future, with endless rain, in flooded cities. Is endless rain really scientifically possible?
My thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for the gift of this free e-book for my review. I'm sorry I don't have a better review to write.
September 5, 2025
This book took a while to grow on me, but it concluded beautifully.
This is an exploration of “What it might mean to honour a dying person, to honour a dying world.” We see the flooded city of San Francisco through the eyes of Bo, an artist and carer for the elderly, and Mai, the cranky old Chinese woman who is coming to the end of her life.
There was something so touching about how Bo learns to create again, and how she expresses her love for Mai.
This is an exploration of “What it might mean to honour a dying person, to honour a dying world.” We see the flooded city of San Francisco through the eyes of Bo, an artist and carer for the elderly, and Mai, the cranky old Chinese woman who is coming to the end of her life.
There was something so touching about how Bo learns to create again, and how she expresses her love for Mai.
May 20, 2025
The city under a siege of rain for seven years was mesmerizing and atmospheric, even despite the obvious “environmental” catastrophe implied. It’s also a story of life, love of family, letting go, and healing. So, it is a beautiful novel for those reasons.
Did not care for the “activism” on display in the wrap-up, however, or where things were left on the final page.
Recommended, but with caution.
Did not care for the “activism” on display in the wrap-up, however, or where things were left on the final page.
Recommended, but with caution.
April 3, 2025
Awake In The Floating City by Susanna Kwan, This book is about Artist bo who has lost her passion for her art, since the death of her mother, until she starts taking care of Ms. Mya. they live in the future time while medical advancement has made it possible for Miss Maya to live well over 150 IDK exactly how old but through Miss Mya’s stories bow gets inspired and says she’s going to make something about her life. At the same time we get to learn about the place they love and don’t want to leave a floating city who most are moving away from. Bo cousin pleads with her to leave but she doesn’t want to and now that she has started doing art again and through her friendship with Maya she starts to see she may have a lot of life left but will she finish her peace before Miss Maya expires and will she make it to Canada to start again? this book was not only original it was truly interesting in a book I absolutely recommend. I have found myself reading a lot of literary fiction lately and this one set in a futuristic universe is absolutely my favorite. I loved Bo’s casual attitude although I am not going to lie I could not picture the art she was creating and although I’m sure some people did, I myself did not but I’m sure it was pretty. Having said that I think this is a great book and one everyone should read. #NetGalley, #TheBlindReviewer, #MyHonestReview, #SusannaKwan, #AwakeInTheFloatingCity,
August 31, 2025
A very slow read and sometimes a little too slow but I think that was almost deliberate on the author’s part. Choices about survival take time. Death takes time. Life takes time.
There was much about this novel that reminded me of ‘The Door’ which I read recently. A housekeeper/carer and their relationship with the house owner/caree. A celebration of a life long lived in turbulent times.
Stunning stunning writing.
5.5 stars. But it is not plot driven so don’t come looking for a fast read.
There was much about this novel that reminded me of ‘The Door’ which I read recently. A housekeeper/carer and their relationship with the house owner/caree. A celebration of a life long lived in turbulent times.
Stunning stunning writing.
5.5 stars. But it is not plot driven so don’t come looking for a fast read.
October 30, 2026
An original, beautifully written, occasionally tedious, deeply poignant novel whose literary achievements are as unmistakable as its unevenness.
Disclosure: My own historical novel, The Covert Buccaneer, was also considered for the San Francisco Public Library’s 2026 One City One Book selection. Kwan’s was chosen instead. I mention this so readers know my connection to the selection, particularly since I analyze what makes Kwan’s novel such an interesting choice for a citywide reading program. I approached it with genuine curiosity and trust in the SFPL panel's discernment.
I’m glad I read it. I admired a lot about it. I also found myself frustrated by it. Along with the eBook, I listened to Catherine Ho’s audiobook performance, which deserves considerable praise.
A City That Takes Its Time Revealing Itself
Kwan places us in a near-future San Francisco ravaged by flooding and increasingly abandoned by its inhabitants. Yet she initially withholds both the city’s identity and the story’s precise chronology. We must piece together the geography and timeline ourselves. I can appreciate the artistic intention. The disorientation mirrors Bo's, our protagonist, as her familiar world disappears around her. Even the calendar feels unstable as the novel moves through 2055 and into 2056 (again, the reader must figure out the year from breadcrumbs).
But the technique comes at a cost. For readers familiar with San Francisco, recognizing the city becomes an exercise in assembling clues rather than immediately inhabiting the setting. I observed the ambition while questioning whether the resulting distance was effective.
Bo: The Psychology of Staying
Bo refuses to evacuate, even as the city becomes increasingly uninhabitable. Her cousin Jensen repeatedly offers to bring her to safety. She repeatedly resists, agrees, reconsiders, and reneges. Her reluctance has a credible psychological foundation. Her mother disappeared years earlier, and Bo has never fully surrendered the possibility of her return. Leaving San Francisco would mean abandoning the last place where that reunion might occur.
Kwan understands how grief can arrest a life. But understanding a character’s behavior doesn’t necessarily make repeated exposure to it satisfying. By the final tenth of the novel, I was still waiting for Bo’s indecision to develop into something that felt like a meaningful character arc.
There’s something to be said for making readers experience a protagonist’s struggle. Yet that technique has limits. Once we understand the source of a character’s paralysis, subsequent repetitions need to deepen, complicate, or transform our understanding. Psychological credibility does not automatically produce a satisfying character arc. I had a similar reaction to Kristin Hannah’s The Women, which prolonged the reader’s suffering beyond the point where I felt the repetition was serving the story. Kwan employs a different mechanism, but the cumulative effect can be comparable: emotional fatigue.
The Elderly, Impermanence, and the Problem of Meaning
Here Kwan achieves something genuinely affecting. Bo becomes the caregiver for Mia, an elderly woman (age = 130) nearing the end of her life. Their relationship is one of the novel’s greatest strengths, especially because Kwan resists sentimentalizing the daily demands of caregiving.
Bo’s stoicism and professionalism are striking. She is herself displaced, grieving, and profoundly uncertain about her future. Yet she remains attentive to Mia’s needs, regulating her own distress so she can care for someone else. There’s a revealing contradiction in Bo: she can't resolve her own losses, but she can make herself useful in the face of someone else’s.
I also appreciated Kwan’s willingness to examine old age without looking away from its indignities, loneliness, and inevitable conclusion. One particularly devastating passage involves clearing out Mia’s closet. Her wedding dress, once the centerpiece of an enormously consequential day, has become an artifact of a life whose meaning is increasingly inaccessible to others. Even Mia’s marriage has receded into something resembling a distant historical data point.
I thought of Shelley’s Ozymandias. What survives us? Our possessions? Our accomplishments? Our relationships? And what happens when the people who remember the significance of those things disappear too? The objects may outlive the meanings attached to them. Eventually, the objects disappear as well.
The novel repeatedly approaches the possibility that impermanence renders everything meaningless. Yet Bo’s devotion to Mia offers a counterargument: perhaps meaning exists in the act of loving and caring, regardless of whether anything survives to commemorate it. Mia’s eventual death, in the company of the person who has come to know her best (Bo), is beautifully handled. It provides one of the novel’s most satisfying emotional resolutions.
Displacement, History, and the Individual Life
Bo also confronts a troubling question: Why should her displacement matter more than the countless displacements of people throughout history? It’s an intelligent question, particularly in a dystopian novel concerned with climate catastrophe, immigration, exclusion, and the erasure of communities. But the universality of suffering doesn’t diminish its significance to the individual experiencing it. The fact that countless people have lost their homes doesn't make the loss of one’s own home inconsequential.
Kwan examines displacement at several scales: the personal, the communal, and the historical. Mia’s closet, Bo’s missing mother, San Francisco’s abandoned neighborhoods, and the histories of uprooted populations become variations on the same existential problem.
The thematic architecture is impressive. Its execution is another matter.
Literary Ambition Versus Narrative Economy
This is where I struggled most. Kwan is clearly a gifted literary writer. Her language can be elegant, precise, and arrestingly beautiful. Her imagination is original, and her understanding of historical forces shaping San Francisco is undeniable.
But the novel repeatedly drifts into extended historical exposition. A chapter devoted to Angel Island’s history, presented through a book and the work of a female photographer, is a particularly conspicuous example. The subject is unquestionably relevant to the novel’s themes. Yet the experience begins to resemble reading nonfiction inserted into the middle of a novel.
And it happens repeatedly. I kept thinking about something I learned from time I spent with Min Jin Lee: an accomplished novelist allows the author to disappear into the storytelling. An omniscient narrator can move across time, history, and individual consciousness with tremendous authority. But that authority works best when the reader stays immersed in the story. When I repeatedly become conscious of the author displaying her research, explaining what I should learn, or pointing to how clever or profound she's being, the fictional spell begins to break.
The problem isn’t that Kwan knows too much history. It’s that she occasionally allows the history to displace the story.
Her handling of information also shows an interesting imbalance. She withholds basic narrative coordinates, asking readers to infer where and when the story takes place, yet supplies extensive historical explanations that readers might have been trusted to discover or interpret themselves. As these passages accumulated, I increasingly found myself tuning out. That’s an unfortunate consequence for a novel so concerned with preserving memory: the very material intended to deepen my understanding of the past began slipping past me.
Kwan’s research is substantial. Her historical interests are compelling. I simply wish she had trusted her characters and storytelling to carry more of that knowledge.
When Kwan Lets Art Do the Work
And then there are the numerous passages and structural elements that show just how extraordinary Kwan can be.
Bo’s elaborate art installation, featuring mechanical birds flying through the city and projecting images onto its surfaces, is ingenious. Here the novel’s preoccupations with memory, loss, history, and impermanence become something vivid and immediate. Art accomplishes what pages of exposition sometimes struggle to achieve.
The installation also provides a remarkable culmination of Bo’s grief. She places her missing, presumably dead mother into imagined scenes throughout San Francisco: in a rowboat, at a birthday banquet on a rooftop, at Civic Center, at the beach, walking across a footbridge, reading a book. These are the ordinary experiences of a life that might have continued. And then Bo deletes the files.
It’s a devastating artistic gesture. The images exist briefly, projected at a grand scale across a disappearing city, before Bo deliberately erases them. In a novel obsessed with what survives, she creates an extraordinary act of remembrance and then relinquishes it. I found this sequence among the book’s finest achievements.
The Library That Chose the Book Is Also a Feature of the Book
Imagine my amusement when I arrived at a chapter set in the San Francisco Public Library, where a librarian named Antonia helps Bo research the archives of a disappearing city. SFPL itself becomes a custodian of the city’s collective memory.
Now, I’m not suggesting the One City One Book committee was swayed by a flattering institutional placement. But I won't pretend the coincidence is lost on me. 😂
It reminded me of Ann Patchett championing The Correspondent, an excellent novel in its own right that also happens to feature Patchett herself. Sometimes the literary world shows its own little inside marketing strategies.
And Antonia’s appearance isn’t isolated to one cameo. She returns, including at the very end, sending Bo an article she thinks Bo will appreciate and mentioning that she saw the citywide art installation the previous evening. After Mia’s death, and with Bo apparently alone, that small gesture offers a thread of human connection. It’s an understated and affecting conclusion.
Why SFPL Might Have Chosen This Book
I can understand the appeal of this title for a citywide reading initiative. It invites discussion about climate change, immigration, displacement, aging, caregiving, historical preservation, and the meaning of community. Its imagined future encourages readers to consider what makes San Francisco worth remembering and what might be lost if the city itself becomes uninhabitable.
The novel’s historical material also offers abundant opportunities for educational programming. Whether that same material always serves the fiction effectively is a separate question. A book can be exceptionally well suited to a public library’s educational mission while remaining uneven as a novel. I don’t know what considerations ultimately guided the selection committee, but I can appreciate the opportunities this particular book presents for civic conversation.
Catherine Ho Makes the Difference
I can't overstate how much Catherine Ho’s audiobook performance contributed to my experience. Her narration breathes life into Kwan’s language, giving the prose emotional immediacy and helping sustain engagement through stretches where the narrative loses momentum. I suspect that, had I been reading the Kindle edition on its own, I might have settled around three stars and possibly struggled to finish.
That isn’t because the novel lacks originality, beauty, poignancy, or literary merit. It possesses all those qualities. But it also drags. Its pacing is uneven. Its expository passages sometimes overwhelm its dramatic momentum. Ho’s performance allows what’s genuinely skilled about Kwan’s writing to blossom. Kwan created the language, characters, imagery, and remarkable artistic conceits. Ho gives them an additional dimension through her interpretation.
I am grateful to both artists for the experience.
Final Thoughts
This is a novel of considerable intelligence and literary ambition. It showcases gorgeous writing, inventive imagery, penetrating observations about aging and caregiving, and a poignant examination of what happens when the places and people that define us disappear.
It also asks for considerable patience. I admired Bo’s devotion to Mia far more than I enjoyed her repeated reversals about leaving San Francisco. I appreciated the historical connections while wishing Kwan had integrated them more organically. I found the novel’s philosophical questions compelling, even as its persistent melancholy sometimes became exhausting.
And I was moved by the ending: Mia’s dignified death, the extraordinary spectacle of Bo’s projected memories, their deliberate erasure, and Antonia’s small gesture of connection.
The novel leaves us with a difficult proposition. Nothing lasts. Perhaps even the most consequential moments of our lives eventually become anonymous fragments of history. But while we're here, we can still create, care for one another, remember, and reach across the distance between us. That's beautiful.
I admire Kwan’s literary talent. My reservations about her narrative discipline are equally genuine. An original, poignant, sometimes tedious, frequently beautiful novel whose finest moments show just how much its author can accomplish when she lets the story speak for itself.
And if you can, I strongly recommend Catherine Ho’s audiobook performance.
Disclosure: My own historical novel, The Covert Buccaneer, was also considered for the San Francisco Public Library’s 2026 One City One Book selection. Kwan’s was chosen instead. I mention this so readers know my connection to the selection, particularly since I analyze what makes Kwan’s novel such an interesting choice for a citywide reading program. I approached it with genuine curiosity and trust in the SFPL panel's discernment.
I’m glad I read it. I admired a lot about it. I also found myself frustrated by it. Along with the eBook, I listened to Catherine Ho’s audiobook performance, which deserves considerable praise.
A City That Takes Its Time Revealing Itself
Kwan places us in a near-future San Francisco ravaged by flooding and increasingly abandoned by its inhabitants. Yet she initially withholds both the city’s identity and the story’s precise chronology. We must piece together the geography and timeline ourselves. I can appreciate the artistic intention. The disorientation mirrors Bo's, our protagonist, as her familiar world disappears around her. Even the calendar feels unstable as the novel moves through 2055 and into 2056 (again, the reader must figure out the year from breadcrumbs).
But the technique comes at a cost. For readers familiar with San Francisco, recognizing the city becomes an exercise in assembling clues rather than immediately inhabiting the setting. I observed the ambition while questioning whether the resulting distance was effective.
Bo: The Psychology of Staying
Bo refuses to evacuate, even as the city becomes increasingly uninhabitable. Her cousin Jensen repeatedly offers to bring her to safety. She repeatedly resists, agrees, reconsiders, and reneges. Her reluctance has a credible psychological foundation. Her mother disappeared years earlier, and Bo has never fully surrendered the possibility of her return. Leaving San Francisco would mean abandoning the last place where that reunion might occur.
Kwan understands how grief can arrest a life. But understanding a character’s behavior doesn’t necessarily make repeated exposure to it satisfying. By the final tenth of the novel, I was still waiting for Bo’s indecision to develop into something that felt like a meaningful character arc.
There’s something to be said for making readers experience a protagonist’s struggle. Yet that technique has limits. Once we understand the source of a character’s paralysis, subsequent repetitions need to deepen, complicate, or transform our understanding. Psychological credibility does not automatically produce a satisfying character arc. I had a similar reaction to Kristin Hannah’s The Women, which prolonged the reader’s suffering beyond the point where I felt the repetition was serving the story. Kwan employs a different mechanism, but the cumulative effect can be comparable: emotional fatigue.
The Elderly, Impermanence, and the Problem of Meaning
Here Kwan achieves something genuinely affecting. Bo becomes the caregiver for Mia, an elderly woman (age = 130) nearing the end of her life. Their relationship is one of the novel’s greatest strengths, especially because Kwan resists sentimentalizing the daily demands of caregiving.
Bo’s stoicism and professionalism are striking. She is herself displaced, grieving, and profoundly uncertain about her future. Yet she remains attentive to Mia’s needs, regulating her own distress so she can care for someone else. There’s a revealing contradiction in Bo: she can't resolve her own losses, but she can make herself useful in the face of someone else’s.
I also appreciated Kwan’s willingness to examine old age without looking away from its indignities, loneliness, and inevitable conclusion. One particularly devastating passage involves clearing out Mia’s closet. Her wedding dress, once the centerpiece of an enormously consequential day, has become an artifact of a life whose meaning is increasingly inaccessible to others. Even Mia’s marriage has receded into something resembling a distant historical data point.
I thought of Shelley’s Ozymandias. What survives us? Our possessions? Our accomplishments? Our relationships? And what happens when the people who remember the significance of those things disappear too? The objects may outlive the meanings attached to them. Eventually, the objects disappear as well.
The novel repeatedly approaches the possibility that impermanence renders everything meaningless. Yet Bo’s devotion to Mia offers a counterargument: perhaps meaning exists in the act of loving and caring, regardless of whether anything survives to commemorate it. Mia’s eventual death, in the company of the person who has come to know her best (Bo), is beautifully handled. It provides one of the novel’s most satisfying emotional resolutions.
Displacement, History, and the Individual Life
Bo also confronts a troubling question: Why should her displacement matter more than the countless displacements of people throughout history? It’s an intelligent question, particularly in a dystopian novel concerned with climate catastrophe, immigration, exclusion, and the erasure of communities. But the universality of suffering doesn’t diminish its significance to the individual experiencing it. The fact that countless people have lost their homes doesn't make the loss of one’s own home inconsequential.
Kwan examines displacement at several scales: the personal, the communal, and the historical. Mia’s closet, Bo’s missing mother, San Francisco’s abandoned neighborhoods, and the histories of uprooted populations become variations on the same existential problem.
The thematic architecture is impressive. Its execution is another matter.
Literary Ambition Versus Narrative Economy
This is where I struggled most. Kwan is clearly a gifted literary writer. Her language can be elegant, precise, and arrestingly beautiful. Her imagination is original, and her understanding of historical forces shaping San Francisco is undeniable.
But the novel repeatedly drifts into extended historical exposition. A chapter devoted to Angel Island’s history, presented through a book and the work of a female photographer, is a particularly conspicuous example. The subject is unquestionably relevant to the novel’s themes. Yet the experience begins to resemble reading nonfiction inserted into the middle of a novel.
And it happens repeatedly. I kept thinking about something I learned from time I spent with Min Jin Lee: an accomplished novelist allows the author to disappear into the storytelling. An omniscient narrator can move across time, history, and individual consciousness with tremendous authority. But that authority works best when the reader stays immersed in the story. When I repeatedly become conscious of the author displaying her research, explaining what I should learn, or pointing to how clever or profound she's being, the fictional spell begins to break.
The problem isn’t that Kwan knows too much history. It’s that she occasionally allows the history to displace the story.
Her handling of information also shows an interesting imbalance. She withholds basic narrative coordinates, asking readers to infer where and when the story takes place, yet supplies extensive historical explanations that readers might have been trusted to discover or interpret themselves. As these passages accumulated, I increasingly found myself tuning out. That’s an unfortunate consequence for a novel so concerned with preserving memory: the very material intended to deepen my understanding of the past began slipping past me.
Kwan’s research is substantial. Her historical interests are compelling. I simply wish she had trusted her characters and storytelling to carry more of that knowledge.
When Kwan Lets Art Do the Work
And then there are the numerous passages and structural elements that show just how extraordinary Kwan can be.
Bo’s elaborate art installation, featuring mechanical birds flying through the city and projecting images onto its surfaces, is ingenious. Here the novel’s preoccupations with memory, loss, history, and impermanence become something vivid and immediate. Art accomplishes what pages of exposition sometimes struggle to achieve.
The installation also provides a remarkable culmination of Bo’s grief. She places her missing, presumably dead mother into imagined scenes throughout San Francisco: in a rowboat, at a birthday banquet on a rooftop, at Civic Center, at the beach, walking across a footbridge, reading a book. These are the ordinary experiences of a life that might have continued. And then Bo deletes the files.
It’s a devastating artistic gesture. The images exist briefly, projected at a grand scale across a disappearing city, before Bo deliberately erases them. In a novel obsessed with what survives, she creates an extraordinary act of remembrance and then relinquishes it. I found this sequence among the book’s finest achievements.
The Library That Chose the Book Is Also a Feature of the Book
Imagine my amusement when I arrived at a chapter set in the San Francisco Public Library, where a librarian named Antonia helps Bo research the archives of a disappearing city. SFPL itself becomes a custodian of the city’s collective memory.
Now, I’m not suggesting the One City One Book committee was swayed by a flattering institutional placement. But I won't pretend the coincidence is lost on me. 😂
It reminded me of Ann Patchett championing The Correspondent, an excellent novel in its own right that also happens to feature Patchett herself. Sometimes the literary world shows its own little inside marketing strategies.
And Antonia’s appearance isn’t isolated to one cameo. She returns, including at the very end, sending Bo an article she thinks Bo will appreciate and mentioning that she saw the citywide art installation the previous evening. After Mia’s death, and with Bo apparently alone, that small gesture offers a thread of human connection. It’s an understated and affecting conclusion.
Why SFPL Might Have Chosen This Book
I can understand the appeal of this title for a citywide reading initiative. It invites discussion about climate change, immigration, displacement, aging, caregiving, historical preservation, and the meaning of community. Its imagined future encourages readers to consider what makes San Francisco worth remembering and what might be lost if the city itself becomes uninhabitable.
The novel’s historical material also offers abundant opportunities for educational programming. Whether that same material always serves the fiction effectively is a separate question. A book can be exceptionally well suited to a public library’s educational mission while remaining uneven as a novel. I don’t know what considerations ultimately guided the selection committee, but I can appreciate the opportunities this particular book presents for civic conversation.
Catherine Ho Makes the Difference
I can't overstate how much Catherine Ho’s audiobook performance contributed to my experience. Her narration breathes life into Kwan’s language, giving the prose emotional immediacy and helping sustain engagement through stretches where the narrative loses momentum. I suspect that, had I been reading the Kindle edition on its own, I might have settled around three stars and possibly struggled to finish.
That isn’t because the novel lacks originality, beauty, poignancy, or literary merit. It possesses all those qualities. But it also drags. Its pacing is uneven. Its expository passages sometimes overwhelm its dramatic momentum. Ho’s performance allows what’s genuinely skilled about Kwan’s writing to blossom. Kwan created the language, characters, imagery, and remarkable artistic conceits. Ho gives them an additional dimension through her interpretation.
I am grateful to both artists for the experience.
Final Thoughts
This is a novel of considerable intelligence and literary ambition. It showcases gorgeous writing, inventive imagery, penetrating observations about aging and caregiving, and a poignant examination of what happens when the places and people that define us disappear.
It also asks for considerable patience. I admired Bo’s devotion to Mia far more than I enjoyed her repeated reversals about leaving San Francisco. I appreciated the historical connections while wishing Kwan had integrated them more organically. I found the novel’s philosophical questions compelling, even as its persistent melancholy sometimes became exhausting.
And I was moved by the ending: Mia’s dignified death, the extraordinary spectacle of Bo’s projected memories, their deliberate erasure, and Antonia’s small gesture of connection.
The novel leaves us with a difficult proposition. Nothing lasts. Perhaps even the most consequential moments of our lives eventually become anonymous fragments of history. But while we're here, we can still create, care for one another, remember, and reach across the distance between us. That's beautiful.
I admire Kwan’s literary talent. My reservations about her narrative discipline are equally genuine. An original, poignant, sometimes tedious, frequently beautiful novel whose finest moments show just how much its author can accomplish when she lets the story speak for itself.
And if you can, I strongly recommend Catherine Ho’s audiobook performance.
September 9, 2025
This book is a quiet slow-burn explosion of art. First there’s the cover. So dreamy! 😍 Then there’s the gorgeous prose; descriptions of post-apocalyptic(ish) San Francisco that are so beautiful they almost make me want to see it in real life. And then the content of the story. The main character is an artist and the experience of art-making permeates these pages.
I think one of the strongest qualities of this novel is how many questions it sparks for readers. How do we survive the climate catastrophe we continue to accelerate? How do we honor our elders, those who are dying, each other in general, ourselves, and the legacy of someone’s life? How do we find ourselves in art, and create art that others can find themselves in? Why and how do we make art at the end of the world? What is art capable of?
The ending really moved me, and I read the last ten or so pages three times.
I definitely recommend this for those who enjoy stories you can sink into without too much action intruding on the heart of it.
Here’s an example of the description of the setting from page one:
“The city had transformed into a rainforest. Vines that ran from roof to ground sucked up water and sent out shoots and tendrils. The skyline brightened from gunmetal to green, softening the sharp edges… Below, streets transformed into rivers, and the rivers blew out windows, tore doors from their frames, widened into buildings through the new openings… a place the rain had claimed.”
I think one of the strongest qualities of this novel is how many questions it sparks for readers. How do we survive the climate catastrophe we continue to accelerate? How do we honor our elders, those who are dying, each other in general, ourselves, and the legacy of someone’s life? How do we find ourselves in art, and create art that others can find themselves in? Why and how do we make art at the end of the world? What is art capable of?
The ending really moved me, and I read the last ten or so pages three times.
I definitely recommend this for those who enjoy stories you can sink into without too much action intruding on the heart of it.
Here’s an example of the description of the setting from page one:
“The city had transformed into a rainforest. Vines that ran from roof to ground sucked up water and sent out shoots and tendrils. The skyline brightened from gunmetal to green, softening the sharp edges… Below, streets transformed into rivers, and the rivers blew out windows, tore doors from their frames, widened into buildings through the new openings… a place the rain had claimed.”
January 13, 2026
I loved this book, it was touching and came at the perfect time. The writing was so vibrant and sensory, it was delicious to sit down with and be comforted by. Highly recommend.
July 14, 2026
Es hatte seine Längen, es hatte aber auch echte Tiefe.
Über weite Strecken konnte ich mit dem Buch wenig anfangen. Minutiöse Beschreibungen eines Kunstprojekts, das mir überhaupt nichts sagte. Wieder und wieder bin ich über den Seiten eingenickt. Trotzdem mochte ich Bo. Und Mia hat mich genau in dem Maß irritiert, in dem sie irritieren sollte. Auch wenn mich das Buch nicht von Anfang an in seinen Bann gezogen hat, war das Ende zerschmetternd. Groß und poetisch und herzzerreißend. Beim Lesen hat es mich nicht so richtig gefangen, als ich es zugeklappt habe, wusste ich, dass es eines dieser Bücher ist, die man nicht mehr vergisst. Es hat mich viel zum Nachdenken gebracht. Über die Lage der Welt, die Zukunft des Planeten und die Einsamkeit, die wir uns damit schaffen.
Über weite Strecken konnte ich mit dem Buch wenig anfangen. Minutiöse Beschreibungen eines Kunstprojekts, das mir überhaupt nichts sagte. Wieder und wieder bin ich über den Seiten eingenickt. Trotzdem mochte ich Bo. Und Mia hat mich genau in dem Maß irritiert, in dem sie irritieren sollte. Auch wenn mich das Buch nicht von Anfang an in seinen Bann gezogen hat, war das Ende zerschmetternd. Groß und poetisch und herzzerreißend. Beim Lesen hat es mich nicht so richtig gefangen, als ich es zugeklappt habe, wusste ich, dass es eines dieser Bücher ist, die man nicht mehr vergisst. Es hat mich viel zum Nachdenken gebracht. Über die Lage der Welt, die Zukunft des Planeten und die Einsamkeit, die wir uns damit schaffen.
May 24, 2025
4.5 stars. Susanna Kwan debuts with a thought provoking tale of a woman’s search for a better life in a near-future San Francisco deluged with never-ending rain. Instead of leaving for Canada to live with relatives, our MC Bo, an artist/caregiver, stays to care for Mia, her 130-year-old neighbor. The story delves into the daily lives of these two women, the last few remaining in the city - yr 2050, with Bo finding purpose in preserving Mia’s legacy through her art, and with Mia’s age, ailments, and reminiscing of her family + youth.. also both share Chinese ancestry/cultural practices. The story is simple, non-complicated and slower-paced. I found it to be such a beautiful character-driven tale that gives much insight into human connection. Really enjoyed it. ❥ Pub. 5/13/25 📖🎧
August 9, 2025
Of the books I’ve read this year, this is the one that keeps drifting in and out of mind.
San Francisco and other coastal areas are slowly returning to the sea. The flooding is not the aftermath of cataclysm, but of processes set in motion that ultimately became inexorable. Some people remain in the city, possible only because the water has not yet reclaimed the higher floors of tall buildings. Trade is maintained by boat, with small shops on the rooftops.
Bo provides hospice care for Mia, whose family has long since left. Bo creates a temporary memorial, drone-projected onto the city itself, of images from the history of San Francisco and its people, and from Mia’s life and her own. This gift of art is celebratory, elegiac, and evanescent.
The dying city is beautifully limned, lushly detailed. The choices people make — to stay or to go — feel very real to me. We all mourn in different ways.
San Francisco and other coastal areas are slowly returning to the sea. The flooding is not the aftermath of cataclysm, but of processes set in motion that ultimately became inexorable. Some people remain in the city, possible only because the water has not yet reclaimed the higher floors of tall buildings. Trade is maintained by boat, with small shops on the rooftops.
Bo provides hospice care for Mia, whose family has long since left. Bo creates a temporary memorial, drone-projected onto the city itself, of images from the history of San Francisco and its people, and from Mia’s life and her own. This gift of art is celebratory, elegiac, and evanescent.
The dying city is beautifully limned, lushly detailed. The choices people make — to stay or to go — feel very real to me. We all mourn in different ways.
May 16, 2025
This was one of my most anticipated books of 2025 so believe me when I say I’m bereft this didn’t land for me.
Based on the hype and blurb, I was expecting a climate dystopia; but instead, I got an achingly slow story about a milquetoast woman doing a giant Art Attack. I’m being glib, of course, but my expectation vs. what I got were worlds apart. The primary focus of this book is Bo’s relationship with art and her building a large art installation.
The world-building was so skint. The story takes place in a flooded San Francisco. We can assume this happened as a result of climate breakdown but it’s not explored. Somehow the folks living in this flooded city are able to get money, have rental agreements, send and receive mail, require passports, participate in capitalism… It reads like this is an isolated pocket and the rest of the world has just kept on truckin’. I was distracted by the fact that the pull of the tides and water flooding the bottom three storeys of the apartment blocks wasn’t a more urgent problem than a throwaway sentence mention at 85%.
I couldn’t connect with Bo. Nothing she did made sense to me and I didn’t understand her motivations or actions. Like, she steadfastly refuses to leave when Jenson brings a boat down, but then, she takes on responsibility for the vulnerable Mia and suddenly decides she has to leave, then flakes out again after her family moved mountains to arrange it. She wasn’t a strong character, she was uncommunicative, and infuriatingly passive — I moved from not caring about her to actively disliking her by the end.
The writing style didn’t work for me either. The pace was super slow with info dumps about history, tangential characters, and backstory that it didn’t flow as a cohesive narrative for this reader. The storytelling was heavy on exposition (told largely in Bo’s thoughts) and I struggled to be invested in Bo and Mia’s family histories because I couldn’t connect with them as characters.
If you’re looking for rich dystopian world-building, climate thrills, or sci-fi elements, this might not be the read for you. If you like slow-paced, kinda claustrophobic stories with art as its focus, you might have a better time than I did.
⚠️ Content advisories for this story: detailed description of dying and death of an elderly person.
I had my request to review this approved by Simon & Schuster UK via NetGalley.
Based on the hype and blurb, I was expecting a climate dystopia; but instead, I got an achingly slow story about a milquetoast woman doing a giant Art Attack. I’m being glib, of course, but my expectation vs. what I got were worlds apart. The primary focus of this book is Bo’s relationship with art and her building a large art installation.
The world-building was so skint. The story takes place in a flooded San Francisco. We can assume this happened as a result of climate breakdown but it’s not explored. Somehow the folks living in this flooded city are able to get money, have rental agreements, send and receive mail, require passports, participate in capitalism… It reads like this is an isolated pocket and the rest of the world has just kept on truckin’. I was distracted by the fact that the pull of the tides and water flooding the bottom three storeys of the apartment blocks wasn’t a more urgent problem than a throwaway sentence mention at 85%.
I couldn’t connect with Bo. Nothing she did made sense to me and I didn’t understand her motivations or actions. Like, she steadfastly refuses to leave when Jenson brings a boat down, but then, she takes on responsibility for the vulnerable Mia and suddenly decides she has to leave, then flakes out again after her family moved mountains to arrange it. She wasn’t a strong character, she was uncommunicative, and infuriatingly passive — I moved from not caring about her to actively disliking her by the end.
The writing style didn’t work for me either. The pace was super slow with info dumps about history, tangential characters, and backstory that it didn’t flow as a cohesive narrative for this reader. The storytelling was heavy on exposition (told largely in Bo’s thoughts) and I struggled to be invested in Bo and Mia’s family histories because I couldn’t connect with them as characters.
If you’re looking for rich dystopian world-building, climate thrills, or sci-fi elements, this might not be the read for you. If you like slow-paced, kinda claustrophobic stories with art as its focus, you might have a better time than I did.
⚠️ Content advisories for this story: detailed description of dying and death of an elderly person.
I had my request to review this approved by Simon & Schuster UK via NetGalley.
December 5, 2024
This debut book scheduled to publish in May 2025 was such a delight to read. People are living to be 100+ while the city is quickly becoming harder to live in. Bo’s family wants her to leave, but she chooses to stay and care for Mia. They form a bond as they get to know one another, and it’s bittersweet to learn about each of their regrets if you will. Bo missing her art and Mia missing her youth, and possibly her daughter. Recommend!
Thank you NetGalley for the advanced copy
Thank you NetGalley for the advanced copy
April 24, 2025
One of the most beautiful endings I’ve read in a long, long time
August 15, 2025
It’s okay. Writing was beautiful in places and some lovely passages about human connection.
April 17, 2026
Not going to lie, this ended up on my to-read list because of the pretty cover.
Less dystopian than I was hoping for; this is pretty much just a sad story set in a plausible future.
Kwan paints an incredibly vivid picture of what it feels like to work with the elderly at the end of their life.
My own memories resurfaced of the years I spent working in assisted living. Like Bo, I remember being struck that these people had lived full lives and done incredible things, only to be reduced to their basic needs of pill rounds and mealtimes in their final years. One resident I helped care for had spent time in the circus as an acrobat; another lived for decades in Japan. What happened to all of their stories? Did anyone treasure their histories or try to preserve their memories?
This is the driving question that haunts Bo as she cares for Mia, a 130 year old woman in the sinking city of San Francisco. Bo is also an artist who has largely given up on her craft as a progressing climate crisis brings more and more despair and isolation into her life. Caring for Mia gives her a reason to create again, stirring up grief, longing, memory, and connection to place.
I found the ending a bit lacking, but overall Awake in the Floating City exhibits some poignant themes amidst beautifully written prose.
3.5
Less dystopian than I was hoping for; this is pretty much just a sad story set in a plausible future.
Kwan paints an incredibly vivid picture of what it feels like to work with the elderly at the end of their life.
My own memories resurfaced of the years I spent working in assisted living. Like Bo, I remember being struck that these people had lived full lives and done incredible things, only to be reduced to their basic needs of pill rounds and mealtimes in their final years. One resident I helped care for had spent time in the circus as an acrobat; another lived for decades in Japan. What happened to all of their stories? Did anyone treasure their histories or try to preserve their memories?
This is the driving question that haunts Bo as she cares for Mia, a 130 year old woman in the sinking city of San Francisco. Bo is also an artist who has largely given up on her craft as a progressing climate crisis brings more and more despair and isolation into her life. Caring for Mia gives her a reason to create again, stirring up grief, longing, memory, and connection to place.
I found the ending a bit lacking, but overall Awake in the Floating City exhibits some poignant themes amidst beautifully written prose.
3.5
February 4, 2026
Ouch ;-; this was a very beautiful read. I really connected with this intimate reflection on art, grief, healing, and their relation to each other. The slow build was a little hard to get through at first, but I soon found myself savoring the lyrical prose and imagery. The story reads like a painting. Colors, landscapes, and the emotional rollercoaster of human relationships are described in ways an artist sees the world. The author helps you notice the beauty in a post-apocalyptic world and evoke sympathy with the ugliness of generational trauma. And it all accumulates to such a well-developed and touching bond between the two main characters. This story was meant to find me (I stumbled upon this at a local bookstore!) and I’m glad it did.
4.5 stars rounded up. Another story that might not be for everyone. CW: depression, intimate explorations of death
4.5 stars rounded up. Another story that might not be for everyone. CW: depression, intimate explorations of death
November 15, 2025
beautiful. read it
edit: ppl who say its slow dont get it. one of my favorites of the entire year if not my favorite
edit: ppl who say its slow dont get it. one of my favorites of the entire year if not my favorite
May 29, 2025
Awake in the Floating City is a book of speculative climate-related fiction set in the mid-twenty-first century. Bo is a Chinese American artist living in San Francisco after it has been flooded by rising seas and constant rain. Many people have left the city, but Bo decides to stay, hoping against hope that mother (who disappeared in a storm) will return. The people who have stayed mostly live on upper floors of high-rise buildings, businesses have moved to rooftops, and life goes on. Bo receives a request to look after her 130-year-old neighbor, Mia, and is hired to care for her. Bo and Mia form a bond and share stories, decreasing their loneliness and isolation. Mia’s stories of the “old days” inspire Bo to renew her interest in art and to create a tribute to both Mia and what has been lost. This is a quiet book about human connection. Even though it is a dystopian novel, it includes elements of hope. It is an impressive debut that emphasizes the importance of community and connections in getting through the troubling times.
Did Not Finish
June 25, 2025DNF @ 46%
I decided to put this one aside, but it is a case of it being me and not the book, so no rating. It is a nicely written character based story, more litfic than specfic, set in a near-future climate damaged San Francisco. I just wasn’t feeling this right now.
I decided to put this one aside, but it is a case of it being me and not the book, so no rating. It is a nicely written character based story, more litfic than specfic, set in a near-future climate damaged San Francisco. I just wasn’t feeling this right now.
September 10, 2025
This is one of the rare gems, a book that has moved me to tears.
Awake in the Floating City is set in the flooded city of San Francisco, where people walk on roofs instead of streets and those who are able leave the city for healthier places. Those who stay seem to do it because they cannot leave, physically or financially, or because they feel a responsibility to stay.
Our main character is Bo, an artist in her thirties who has been working as a caregiver. She could leave the city, but she feels unwilling to as it's the last place her mother was alive before she disappeared in a flooding. Bo starts caring for Mia, a hundred-and-thirty-years old woman living in the same building as her, as Mia's condition worsens and she needs more and more assistance.
This is a slow novel, lingering on the moments and descriptions and the familiarity of the pain of loss. It does it beautifully. The past is explored through the individual memories of the characters, of their home streets and grocery stores and childhood friends now dead. There is no wider memory of recollection of how we got to this point, no societal history (it only peeks through in the memories of the characters) and I loved that. This is a book about the personal and about remembering.
I've had an awful year personally. The sudden loss of a loved one left a vast emptiness, and another loved one needs more care and attention and I worry about her constantly. On the surface, nothing about Awake in the Floating City – the setting, the characters, the choices – is similar to my life. Yet the feeling is there, so raw, unflinching, honest, tender, painful like a wound that is not healing correctly.
In some ways, this one made me scared. Scared for the loss I know is coming soon, and also scared for the loss of my mum which will come, one day, and I will never be ready for it. Yet there is comfort to be found on these pages too, in the familiar, in the shared feeling, in the hope. In remembering.
Awake in the Floating City is set in the flooded city of San Francisco, where people walk on roofs instead of streets and those who are able leave the city for healthier places. Those who stay seem to do it because they cannot leave, physically or financially, or because they feel a responsibility to stay.
Our main character is Bo, an artist in her thirties who has been working as a caregiver. She could leave the city, but she feels unwilling to as it's the last place her mother was alive before she disappeared in a flooding. Bo starts caring for Mia, a hundred-and-thirty-years old woman living in the same building as her, as Mia's condition worsens and she needs more and more assistance.
This is a slow novel, lingering on the moments and descriptions and the familiarity of the pain of loss. It does it beautifully. The past is explored through the individual memories of the characters, of their home streets and grocery stores and childhood friends now dead. There is no wider memory of recollection of how we got to this point, no societal history (it only peeks through in the memories of the characters) and I loved that. This is a book about the personal and about remembering.
I've had an awful year personally. The sudden loss of a loved one left a vast emptiness, and another loved one needs more care and attention and I worry about her constantly. On the surface, nothing about Awake in the Floating City – the setting, the characters, the choices – is similar to my life. Yet the feeling is there, so raw, unflinching, honest, tender, painful like a wound that is not healing correctly.
In some ways, this one made me scared. Scared for the loss I know is coming soon, and also scared for the loss of my mum which will come, one day, and I will never be ready for it. Yet there is comfort to be found on these pages too, in the familiar, in the shared feeling, in the hope. In remembering.
April 24, 2025
I rarely start a review marveling about the cover art and chapter separators, but in this debut book, it sets the stage for what to expect on your reader journey: a muted and hushed story that nonetheless couches subtle beauty.
The first chapter orients the reader into time and place: the San Francisco of the future, where the rain has been pouring down for seven years and the streets have been transformed to rivers. The residents – including our narrator, Bo – have had to seek higher ground. Read that as a metaphor.
Despite the widespread exodus, Bo hasn’t left (“If I leave, she asks, “how can I be found?” She belongs to the city. And just when she needs it most, she finds her purpose to stay: a woman named Mia, who is 130 years old and in desperate need of home care. She is Bo’s anchor in a watery world and her way back to the specifics, not only of the future, but also of her familial legacy.
Bo’s purpose becomes the art of creation: taking what exists before her time and before the floods and superimposing it on the city’s history – the records and archives, the landmarks and buildings, the challenging history of Asian immigrants (which included the Chinese Exclusion Act, Angel Island, and more), and the disappearing stories of those who moved on.
At its core, this is a novel about the importance of connection: to family and ancestry, to friends (old and new), to our creative muses, and to our need for meaning. I am grateful to BookBrowse and to Pantheon Books for enabling me to be an early reader in exchange for an honest review.
The first chapter orients the reader into time and place: the San Francisco of the future, where the rain has been pouring down for seven years and the streets have been transformed to rivers. The residents – including our narrator, Bo – have had to seek higher ground. Read that as a metaphor.
Despite the widespread exodus, Bo hasn’t left (“If I leave, she asks, “how can I be found?” She belongs to the city. And just when she needs it most, she finds her purpose to stay: a woman named Mia, who is 130 years old and in desperate need of home care. She is Bo’s anchor in a watery world and her way back to the specifics, not only of the future, but also of her familial legacy.
Bo’s purpose becomes the art of creation: taking what exists before her time and before the floods and superimposing it on the city’s history – the records and archives, the landmarks and buildings, the challenging history of Asian immigrants (which included the Chinese Exclusion Act, Angel Island, and more), and the disappearing stories of those who moved on.
At its core, this is a novel about the importance of connection: to family and ancestry, to friends (old and new), to our creative muses, and to our need for meaning. I am grateful to BookBrowse and to Pantheon Books for enabling me to be an early reader in exchange for an honest review.
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