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Everything to the Sea
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Expected 14 Jul 26Part riveting love story, part coming-of-age tale, Everything to the Sea is a breathtaking debut novel spanning years and shores after a sudden tsunami devastates the island of Hawai’i and cuts short a young couple’s budding romance—a deeply moving testament to the catastrophes love can endure.
This is how the story goes: Jane will fall in love. And then all of this will vanish.
Home for one final summer, Jane is working and saving cash for her senior year of college before she leaves her island town behind forever. At first, she doesn’t remember Kenji, but he quickly becomes someone she can’t forget: square jaw, a dimple in his cheek. A Hilo boy. To Kenji, she’s Janie, nose perpetually buried in her old high school sketchbooks. 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.
Then a tsunami sweeps their families out to sea, and their all-consuming affair breaks with the weight of grief, pulling them in opposite directions. Kenji remains in Hawai’i, bound by duty to rebuild their hometown. Jane, shattered by the loss, follows her best friend to California. For seven years, an ocean lies between them, until Jane and Kenji meet on another coast . . .
In prose that sparkles like sun on the water, Upano’s debut novel tells the unforgettable story of two young people as they come of age, fall in love, forge new families, and try to find their way back together, again and again. Everything to the Sea is a moving portrait of our ability to overcome even the most devastating tragedies, when everything else is washed away.
This is how the story goes: Jane will fall in love. And then all of this will vanish.
Home for one final summer, Jane is working and saving cash for her senior year of college before she leaves her island town behind forever. At first, she doesn’t remember Kenji, but he quickly becomes someone she can’t forget: square jaw, a dimple in his cheek. A Hilo boy. To Kenji, she’s Janie, nose perpetually buried in her old high school sketchbooks. 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.
Then a tsunami sweeps their families out to sea, and their all-consuming affair breaks with the weight of grief, pulling them in opposite directions. Kenji remains in Hawai’i, bound by duty to rebuild their hometown. Jane, shattered by the loss, follows her best friend to California. For seven years, an ocean lies between them, until Jane and Kenji meet on another coast . . .
In prose that sparkles like sun on the water, Upano’s debut novel tells the unforgettable story of two young people as they come of age, fall in love, forge new families, and try to find their way back together, again and again. Everything to the Sea is a moving portrait of our ability to overcome even the most devastating tragedies, when everything else is washed away.
11 pages, Audiobook
Expected publication July 14, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 96 reviews
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
⭐️ 4 ⭐️ Coming of age stories are some of my favorites because there is always something you can take away from the story. Young love is always...well..young and selfish and most of the time it's rushed. It's often very fierce and hot, like a flame. It feels magical and in our hearts it lasts forever. And it can! Young love can be real love. It can grow and flourish into something more beautiful and everlasting. It can be meaningful as much as intimate. Everything to the Sea is that very same story of young love set up in the aftermath of a tsunami.
Hilo, Hawaii--Jane and Kenji story begins before a disaster: they are two young people who fall in love. Everything is breathtaking beautiful, like the calm before the storm and seems to be going well. They seem madly enamored with each until a tsunami sweeps Hilo, destroying the community, claiming their loved ones and ultimately shattering their worlds apart. In the aftermath, their paths change leading them to years of guilt, longing and grief through the next seven years. Shattered by loss and grief, this is a story about undying love amidst the backdrop of natural disasters, duty and desire, the past and the future. Can their relationship survive after the wounds left by this tragedy?
Everything to the Sea is so much more than a simple romance novel. It's deeply emotional, moving, resilient. It vividly captures not only the beauty of Hawaii and culture but also the 'sense of place' and belonging. It captured the complexities of human nature and young love. The novel explored the dangers and barriers of it, the promises of forever--the today, tomorrow and forever. It's a wonderful literary fiction debut that feels authentic and immersive. It's deliberately slow so that the readers can fully understand the characters and their choices. While I didn't really love any of the characters, I appreciated how well nuanced they were. I must admit that I saw parts of my self in this coming of age story, as I too once thought that young love is forever. Haven't we all?
Overall, this is a complicated story with emotional weight. I really liked how Upano used a natural disaster to relay the message about recovery and personal growth--that people have to rebuild themselves first when everything they knew has been swept away.
Many thanks to Netgalley, William Morrow and the author, Alicia Upano for an early ARC.
Many thanks to HarperAudio Adult for an early ALC.
Narrator: Barrie Kealoha
Duration: 10 hours 20 minutes
Speed: 1.5x
Publication: July 14, 2026
Hilo, Hawaii--Jane and Kenji story begins before a disaster: they are two young people who fall in love. Everything is breathtaking beautiful, like the calm before the storm and seems to be going well. They seem madly enamored with each until a tsunami sweeps Hilo, destroying the community, claiming their loved ones and ultimately shattering their worlds apart. In the aftermath, their paths change leading them to years of guilt, longing and grief through the next seven years. Shattered by loss and grief, this is a story about undying love amidst the backdrop of natural disasters, duty and desire, the past and the future. Can their relationship survive after the wounds left by this tragedy?
Everything to the Sea is so much more than a simple romance novel. It's deeply emotional, moving, resilient. It vividly captures not only the beauty of Hawaii and culture but also the 'sense of place' and belonging. It captured the complexities of human nature and young love. The novel explored the dangers and barriers of it, the promises of forever--the today, tomorrow and forever. It's a wonderful literary fiction debut that feels authentic and immersive. It's deliberately slow so that the readers can fully understand the characters and their choices. While I didn't really love any of the characters, I appreciated how well nuanced they were. I must admit that I saw parts of my self in this coming of age story, as I too once thought that young love is forever. Haven't we all?
Overall, this is a complicated story with emotional weight. I really liked how Upano used a natural disaster to relay the message about recovery and personal growth--that people have to rebuild themselves first when everything they knew has been swept away.
Many thanks to Netgalley, William Morrow and the author, Alicia Upano for an early ARC.
Many thanks to HarperAudio Adult for an early ALC.
Narrator: Barrie Kealoha
Duration: 10 hours 20 minutes
Speed: 1.5x
Publication: July 14, 2026
December 9, 2025
⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️
Love can feel like a tsunami. It often begins quietly, beneath the surface, but when it reaches you, it is undeniable. It permanently alters and reshapes who you are, leaving lasting imprints and reconfiguring your internal map. It’s an astonishing display of beauty and might, unable to be controlled, but only responded to.
This is why it was such an apt analogy, and it perfectly encapsulated the relationship between Kenji and Jane. This book was really good. It took a unique angle on the “love that withstands the test of time” trope and made it feel fresh. I loved the setting, and although their behavior drove me crazy at times, I understood the push and pull nature of their enduring love. Timing is often everything in matters of the heart, and following these two through the years as they pursued and retreated felt familiar, poignant, and heartbreaking.
What a great debut from Upano. I’ll be looking forward to more from her in the future.
Love can feel like a tsunami. It often begins quietly, beneath the surface, but when it reaches you, it is undeniable. It permanently alters and reshapes who you are, leaving lasting imprints and reconfiguring your internal map. It’s an astonishing display of beauty and might, unable to be controlled, but only responded to.
This is why it was such an apt analogy, and it perfectly encapsulated the relationship between Kenji and Jane. This book was really good. It took a unique angle on the “love that withstands the test of time” trope and made it feel fresh. I loved the setting, and although their behavior drove me crazy at times, I understood the push and pull nature of their enduring love. Timing is often everything in matters of the heart, and following these two through the years as they pursued and retreated felt familiar, poignant, and heartbreaking.
What a great debut from Upano. I’ll be looking forward to more from her in the future.
October 28, 2025
this is the kind of book that reminds me why i love reading so much. i was captivated by every single page. such a beautiful story that perfectly depicts loss, grief, healing, and rebuilding everything from scratch, including yourself. this is an unforgettable love story but more than anything, a tale of the strength it takes to carry on living after so much pain. alice upano is a painter of world building and layered characters, truly an incredible storyteller. grateful that i got to read this! i will carry these characters in my heart, i cried countless times.
February 21, 2026
I could not put this down.. a heartbreaking novel and so, so good. From what I can tell, this is the first novel from this author, and what a masterpiece. I loved learning about a culture and a place that was unfamiliar to me, and the author took care to describe the settings and people with love, respect & dignity as they navigated the unthinkable. The characters are deeply flawed but you root for them anyway, which is always my barometer for good writing. Thank you Harper Collins for the advanced copy! Add this to your list for when it comes out in July.
February 18, 2026
I would have enjoyed this a lot more if the characters acted like adults after the seven year time gap, and actually talked, instead of just making assumptions about everything.
March 21, 2026
*Thank you so much to Bloomsbury for sending me an early copy of this to read!*
I’ve never really read a book centralling a natural disaster like this, and I was completely captivated by the storytelling from the beginning. It’s predictably a very turbulent and raw story, but the premise for me was so original and so tender that I was really struck by it. It really emphasised the importance of community and rebuilding your life and home after such devastation and unimaginable loss, and how that lingers for families for several generations and how people's life trajectory can be permanently altered as a consequence. The emotional rollercoasters, the fight or flight, the dynamics that can either be strengthened or snapped. It was just such an intriguing look at trauma and coping, and I think it was very well written.
The characters also really enhanced this story for me, and though I didn’t always find myself rooting for them or necessarily being satisfied by their actions or behaviour, I was endlessly empathetic and curious about them. It’s difficult when things aren’t clear cut, and there is so much nuance and factors impacting the turn of events. It’s an unpredictable and wild kind of story, intertwined with a deep sadness and longing for a different reality. Neither wholly likable nor wholly unlikable, they did feel like real people and they all felt so distinct in my mind while reading. Not everyone can write a fully three dimensional dual perspective novel, but I think this was handled beautifully.
The one thing I wasn't entirely sold on with this one was the romance element. Because it’s introduced so early on and feels very rushed to develop, it didn’t entirely sway me. The feelings felt very intense but surface level, because there wasn't enough time to acclimate to the characters and their newfound bond with each other. It meant for me that I struggled with all of the turbulence of everything following their initial romance when things got difficult. I don’t know if I wholly believed their undeniable draw to each other. It doesn't really feel like a traditional ‘love story' as marketed and advertised. Romance feels like the least important element of the book, all things considered. Their constant miscommunication and will they wont they were also a little bit tedious by that end, but I suppose that was the point.
I really liked this one, and Upano is definitely an author whose name I’ll look out for in the future. A very promising storyteller.
I’ve never really read a book centralling a natural disaster like this, and I was completely captivated by the storytelling from the beginning. It’s predictably a very turbulent and raw story, but the premise for me was so original and so tender that I was really struck by it. It really emphasised the importance of community and rebuilding your life and home after such devastation and unimaginable loss, and how that lingers for families for several generations and how people's life trajectory can be permanently altered as a consequence. The emotional rollercoasters, the fight or flight, the dynamics that can either be strengthened or snapped. It was just such an intriguing look at trauma and coping, and I think it was very well written.
The characters also really enhanced this story for me, and though I didn’t always find myself rooting for them or necessarily being satisfied by their actions or behaviour, I was endlessly empathetic and curious about them. It’s difficult when things aren’t clear cut, and there is so much nuance and factors impacting the turn of events. It’s an unpredictable and wild kind of story, intertwined with a deep sadness and longing for a different reality. Neither wholly likable nor wholly unlikable, they did feel like real people and they all felt so distinct in my mind while reading. Not everyone can write a fully three dimensional dual perspective novel, but I think this was handled beautifully.
The one thing I wasn't entirely sold on with this one was the romance element. Because it’s introduced so early on and feels very rushed to develop, it didn’t entirely sway me. The feelings felt very intense but surface level, because there wasn't enough time to acclimate to the characters and their newfound bond with each other. It meant for me that I struggled with all of the turbulence of everything following their initial romance when things got difficult. I don’t know if I wholly believed their undeniable draw to each other. It doesn't really feel like a traditional ‘love story' as marketed and advertised. Romance feels like the least important element of the book, all things considered. Their constant miscommunication and will they wont they were also a little bit tedious by that end, but I suppose that was the point.
I really liked this one, and Upano is definitely an author whose name I’ll look out for in the future. A very promising storyteller.
January 16, 2026
This book beautifully tragic. A small Hawaiian Island is faced with unimaginable challenges when a tsunami hits and destroys the community. Homes lost, families destroyed, and people are swept away without a trace. The book follows two young adults paths through post-tsunami life. One chooses to stay and fix the island while the other—after losing everything—starts anew on the mainland. Set in the context of a love story, the tsunami draws striking parallels to first loves, loss, and the struggles of finding oneself.
I HIGHLY recommend!
Also, this book was provided to me as an advanced readers copy via NetGallery in exchange for an honest review.
I HIGHLY recommend!
Also, this book was provided to me as an advanced readers copy via NetGallery in exchange for an honest review.
November 7, 2025
Beautiful and poetically written. The natural disaster (tsunami) added much to the plot and I loved the comparison to the struggles of love. I was really rooting for Jane and Kenji, both apart and together. The theme of coming of age as well as dealing with grief made this book relatable to me. The overall plot was brilliant and made for a unique story from start to finish. What a beautiful read. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
April 8, 2026
So lucky to have won an ARC of this book from a Goodreads giveaway—it turned out to be one of the best books I’ve read in a long time.
I’ll be thinking about it for a while, but just know that the writing, atmosphere, characters, it’s all a work of art.
I’ll be thinking about it for a while, but just know that the writing, atmosphere, characters, it’s all a work of art.
July 7, 2026
Youthful bliss of the main characters is interrupted as a tsunami breaks over Hawaii and kills their families. From this point, everything changes as their lives are no longer in the safe confines of the familiar. Do they rebuild or run? Do they hold together in what I know or walk into places that are new and fresh? The character of Jane consistently complained and was unsure of her self and her importance in Kenji’s life. This came off as YA and felt rather flat overall in the stories. The narrator voice and presentation was done well even with the dual POV, there is an easy flow with character switches. #everythingtothesea Thanks to #netgalley for the ALC.
June 9, 2026
I loved the first third of this book and what it could be. Two people torn apart by circumstances who are just too young to manage a new relationship through a disaster. As well as a resilient yet battered culture and deep connection to the past while facing the present and future. Family and friends by blood or bond. This is the only reason this wasn’t rated a single star.
Everything that comes after just pissed me off. Fuck Kenji (especially Kenji) and Lorelei and Donnie and everyone but Jane. Jane is given no grace. She is subjected to their judgement and punishments constantly just because she didn’t deal or grieve in a way they deemed acceptable. Her trauma is given no consideration and Kenji’s lack of communication and accountability makes me want to spit in his fictional face.
And then I’m almost done and I’m screaming, “fucking hypocrites! every last one of you!” And there’s talk of forgiveness for Jane, no apologies (I literally stuck it out just to see if there is any emotional justice), and it’s all bullshit. Jane deserves so much better. I hated that ending.
* I received a free early copy from the publisher
Everything that comes after just pissed me off. Fuck Kenji (especially Kenji) and Lorelei and Donnie and everyone but Jane. Jane is given no grace. She is subjected to their judgement and punishments constantly just because she didn’t deal or grieve in a way they deemed acceptable. Her trauma is given no consideration and Kenji’s lack of communication and accountability makes me want to spit in his fictional face.
And then I’m almost done and I’m screaming, “fucking hypocrites! every last one of you!” And there’s talk of forgiveness for Jane, no apologies (I literally stuck it out just to see if there is any emotional justice), and it’s all bullshit. Jane deserves so much better. I hated that ending.
* I received a free early copy from the publisher
November 20, 2025
Despite the book blurb, I was unprepared for how deeply emotional and intensely felt every piece of Everything to the Sea would be.
Upano captures the nuances of the differing perspectives/approaches to life for folks who grew up in a small town and couples that with the intense and merciless reality of natural disasters. Every emotion was conveyed in the most visceral of ways, and had me near tears—and I'm not even an emotional reader! I truly felt that this was so well-crafted and beautiful, honoring the whole spectrum of what one might feel if they survived such a disaster, even the feelings we don't want to acknowledge. Definitely recommend for anyone who is looking for a book that promises hope, even when it feels like there's nothing left in the world.
Upano captures the nuances of the differing perspectives/approaches to life for folks who grew up in a small town and couples that with the intense and merciless reality of natural disasters. Every emotion was conveyed in the most visceral of ways, and had me near tears—and I'm not even an emotional reader! I truly felt that this was so well-crafted and beautiful, honoring the whole spectrum of what one might feel if they survived such a disaster, even the feelings we don't want to acknowledge. Definitely recommend for anyone who is looking for a book that promises hope, even when it feels like there's nothing left in the world.
January 29, 2026
I loved the premise: a story of love, coming of age, loss and grief, self discovery and service — against the backdrop of a community devastated by epic generational tsunamis. I also loved learning about the melding of cultures and traditions made possible by Hawaii’s unique history.
What didn’t work for me was how unlikable I found the main character, who I found selfish, immature, reactive and lacking depth; and the love interest who was more likable but a little flat. It was unclear to me why the initial infatuation would endure past a fun summer fling. The secondary characters were all much more compelling and colorful.
The way it started I thought it would be a quick and simple romance and the fact it continued on for years and years illustrated the long impact of love and tragedy, and how real stories aren’t always linear or quick or tidy. But it also dragged on too long.
All that said, I will definitely keep my eyes open for more books by this debut author. Lots of promise.
Thanks to NetGalley for an opportunity to read this advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
What didn’t work for me was how unlikable I found the main character, who I found selfish, immature, reactive and lacking depth; and the love interest who was more likable but a little flat. It was unclear to me why the initial infatuation would endure past a fun summer fling. The secondary characters were all much more compelling and colorful.
The way it started I thought it would be a quick and simple romance and the fact it continued on for years and years illustrated the long impact of love and tragedy, and how real stories aren’t always linear or quick or tidy. But it also dragged on too long.
All that said, I will definitely keep my eyes open for more books by this debut author. Lots of promise.
Thanks to NetGalley for an opportunity to read this advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
January 5, 2026
Thanks to NetGalley for the chance to read this book before its release!
There are a lot of things I liked about this book, and a few things that weren’t quite up my alley. In the end it’s certainly a heart-wrenching story about a place and a people whose voices need more amplification. The writing style just wasn’t my cup of tea and some of the character development felt forced.
As a debut novel, this was a great effort and I would certainly read more of the author’s future work.
There are a lot of things I liked about this book, and a few things that weren’t quite up my alley. In the end it’s certainly a heart-wrenching story about a place and a people whose voices need more amplification. The writing style just wasn’t my cup of tea and some of the character development felt forced.
As a debut novel, this was a great effort and I would certainly read more of the author’s future work.
July 6, 2026
There were so many interesting, heartbreaking and beautiful parts of this story. What missed the mark for me was the pacing- which was very slow, the FMC- who I really had a hard time cheering for or liking at times, she just seemed beyond selfish from the very start and didn’t really seem to have much growth and a disconnect with the different relationships in the book as a whole. I did enjoy hearing about the Hawaii and parts of its history and how much community is part of the culture, the architecture and art discussed and the growth the MMC seems to have, although I really wanted to shake him as well. All in all I think it was a nice story with great messaging.
March 20, 2026
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC. This is a beautifully written debut about two young adults whose families are lost in a Hawaiian tsunami, and what comes next.. It is a story of love, grief, family, hope, and moving on. I’m shocked this is a debut because the writing was so fantastic and the pacing was so good. I can not wait to see what this author does next. 4.5 stars.
March 5, 2026
i needed this
November 30, 2025
“Everything to the Sea” is a beautiful story about love, loss, grief, family, community, and forgiveness—a profound exploration of losing yourself and finding yourself again. This emotional and poetic book captures how people navigate the aftermath of tragedy, examining the choices we make and the hope that love and faith can lead us home to ourselves.
Thank you to Netgalley for the eArc
Thank you to Netgalley for the eArc
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
An incredibly intense, captivating, and emotional debut. Personally, I love books that focus on coming-of-age tales and this absolutely delivered. Alicia Upano is an author I will absolutely be following/looking forward to reading more from.
The story follows Jane and Kenji during a summer romance whose worlds are shattered after a tsunami sweeps away everyone they love. This event propels them down two different paths; for Kenji it meant returning to Hilo and submerging himself in the relief effort. For Jane, it meant staying back and trying her best to force what happened into the past as she focuses on grad school and a career.
Both characters are flawed human beings and I couldn't fault either of them for their choices. In fact, there were a few times (in tears as I read it, mind you) where I completely understood where Jane was coming from. You will be annoyed with them, but it makes sense to why they act the way they do!!!! The side characters also played important roles when it came to the character development of both Jane and Kenji.
Upano's prose was atmospheric and immersive; the depiction of Hawaii was beautiful, filled with cultural references that I loved reading about. The depiction of grief was raw, to the point I had to set the book down a few times because of how accurate it felt.
Overall, a beautiful and haunting debut. Ending this review with my favorite quote: "To love was to know that your life contained something worth the risk."
The story follows Jane and Kenji during a summer romance whose worlds are shattered after a tsunami sweeps away everyone they love. This event propels them down two different paths; for Kenji it meant returning to Hilo and submerging himself in the relief effort. For Jane, it meant staying back and trying her best to force what happened into the past as she focuses on grad school and a career.
Both characters are flawed human beings and I couldn't fault either of them for their choices. In fact, there were a few times (in tears as I read it, mind you) where I completely understood where Jane was coming from. You will be annoyed with them, but it makes sense to why they act the way they do!!!! The side characters also played important roles when it came to the character development of both Jane and Kenji.
Upano's prose was atmospheric and immersive; the depiction of Hawaii was beautiful, filled with cultural references that I loved reading about. The depiction of grief was raw, to the point I had to set the book down a few times because of how accurate it felt.
Overall, a beautiful and haunting debut. Ending this review with my favorite quote: "To love was to know that your life contained something worth the risk."
June 1, 2026
Thank you for the opportunity to read this ARC! What a touching story.
I loved the atmospheric description of a place forever changed by a tsunami. The book featured many complex characters each with notes of found family, community, grief, success, and love. Following an epic love story of Jane and Kenji, their world is shattered by a wave that takes all they have known. How each handles the situation and struggles with coming to terms ultimately leads to them parting. Years later, they reunite still ablaze in their love. But the wounds of the past resurface and threaten to forever divide the lovers. Janie is forced to reckon with the past when her work takes her home. Caught between the salt of the sea and her tears Janie finally is at peace with Hilo—past and future.
It is rare to find a book that tugs at your heartstrings and leaves you with hope for the future. This book does just that!
I loved the atmospheric description of a place forever changed by a tsunami. The book featured many complex characters each with notes of found family, community, grief, success, and love. Following an epic love story of Jane and Kenji, their world is shattered by a wave that takes all they have known. How each handles the situation and struggles with coming to terms ultimately leads to them parting. Years later, they reunite still ablaze in their love. But the wounds of the past resurface and threaten to forever divide the lovers. Janie is forced to reckon with the past when her work takes her home. Caught between the salt of the sea and her tears Janie finally is at peace with Hilo—past and future.
It is rare to find a book that tugs at your heartstrings and leaves you with hope for the future. This book does just that!
March 2, 2026
3.5☆
Bittersweet story about identity, loss, and two people constantly torn apart and brought back together by all of live's paths.
Bittersweet story about identity, loss, and two people constantly torn apart and brought back together by all of live's paths.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
In Alicia Upano’s debut novel “Everything to the Sea,” catastrophe is not an interruption to life so much as a revelation of what life has always been: provisional, communal, haunted by paperwork and weather, stitched together by food, favors, and the ordinary bravery of showing up again. The book’s central event is a modern-day tsunami that remakes a fictionalized Hilo, Hawai‘i, and scatters the lives of its survivors into new geometries of love and obligation. But Upano is not especially interested in spectacle. Her wave is less a set piece than a moral climate – an atmosphere that lingers long after the water recedes, soaking into property lines, family systems, the gut’s reflexes, the mind’s looping counterfactuals.
The novel’s formal conceit is the quiet kind that feels inevitable once you’ve encountered it: a four-part structure borrowed from the Pacific Tsunami Museum’s language of “Initiation,” “Split,” “Amplification,” and “Run-Up.” It’s a clever scaffold, yes, but more importantly it becomes an ethic. The book is always asking what it means to name the phases of disaster as if they were stages in a romance or a life – as if grief could be diagrammed, as if the body could be persuaded by vocabulary. That tension, between the human urge to impose narrative and the ocean’s indifference to our plots, gives “Everything to the Sea” its steady undertow.
Upano begins in brightness, the kind that already contains its own shadow. Jane Ito, an aspiring architect with a sketchbook’s sense of control, meets Kenji Lee in Hilo with the charged inevitability of two local children who are old enough to think they’ve invented their own freedom. Their early chapters are humid with longing and foreshadowing: storms rolling in, a coastline that looks calm because it is not yet moving. Jane’s hunger is for elsewhere – for the continent, for ambition with measurable returns. Kenji’s hunger is harder to name: he wants to be good, to be useful, to be chosen. They fall into each other with the ease of youth and the slight panic of those who can sense time tightening.
Then the wave comes, and the novel’s emotional temperature changes. What is extraordinary about Upano’s tsunami is how quickly it becomes ordinary – not because the destruction is small, but because survival is a machine that starts running regardless of whether the psyche is ready. People queue. People register. People sleep in rows. People argue over socks and underwear and who gets to charge their phone first. Trauma arrives not only as terror but as logistics. In this, Upano joins a lineage of disaster writing that prefers the granular truth to the cinematic one: not the grand aerial shot, but the cot, the list, the smell of disinfectant, the unbearable intimacy of being alive among strangers. Rebecca Solnit’s “A Paradise Built in Hell” hovers nearby, as do the more solitary devastations of Sonali Deraniyagala’s “Wave” and Richard Lloyd Parry’s “Ghosts of the Tsunami,” but Upano’s emphasis is distinct: the community is not a backdrop for individual transformation. It is the protagonist.
Kenji’s post-wave arc is among the novel’s most finely observed. He becomes a builder in the broadest sense – assembling shelter, assembling a found family, assembling meaning out of wreckage and guilt. He takes in Logan, a boy teetering on the edge of becoming the kind of young man who confuses numbness for strength, and in doing so Kenji makes a choice that feels both altruistic and desperate: if he can keep someone else from falling apart, perhaps he can postpone his own collapse. His relationships with Loralei – fierce, corrective, tender in her own unsentimental way – and with the wider town are drawn with a realism that resists the easy halo we sometimes give “good” men. Kenji’s goodness is a muscle, and like any muscle it can cramp. It can become its own trap.
Jane, meanwhile, becomes a study in the particular shame of the survivor who fled. She ends up in California, professionally successful enough to tell herself she has made the correct choice, and emotionally stranded enough to know she is lying. Upano writes Jane’s ambition without contempt and her escape without absolution. It’s a difficult balance, especially now, when so many contemporary novels flatten their characters into either victims of systems or heroes of self-actualization. Jane is neither. She is simply a person shaped by loss and by the long American catechism that says leaving is the same thing as winning.
What brings Jane back is not epiphany but complication: a landslide, an estate, a town that has continued without her. One of the book’s finest sequences – precise, funny, charged with submerged history – unfolds in a Walmart at 11 p.m., where Kenji, in search of domestic fixtures and anonymity, collides with Jane under fluorescent light. The setting is perfect: the ease of sameness, the violence of being seen. Their encounter is not romantic; it is corrosive. Kenji is sharp in a way that surprises even him, using competence and local knowledge as a weapon. Jane, used to intellectual mastery, is forced into a humiliating kind of beginnerhood: the lot needs more than a cheap trimmer, and she needs more than an apology.
Upano understands that repair is not a single act but a series of humiliations willingly endured. Jane tries, badly, to clear her parents’ lot, then must accept help from Maile and Wally-Jun – later Walter – whose generosity is of the older, local kind: not performative, not transactional, sometimes overbearing, always rooted in the assumption that survival obligates you to others. Maile’s counsel, that helping and accepting help are both forms of doing right, carries the weight of lived philosophy rather than authorial lesson. It is also one of the book’s most contemporary arguments. In an age of burnout and “self-care” commodified into solitude, “Everything to the Sea” insists on mutual aid as not only ethical but necessary – a truth freshly legible after pandemic years, after wildfire seasons, after the televised recursion of disaster that has made so many Americans fluent in other people’s emergencies.
If “Everything to the Sea” has a set piece, it is the museum exhibit Kenji curates, titled “Aftershock.” This is where Upano’s thematic ambitions risk tipping into neatness – an exhibit that contains the town’s story in installations titled Before, Shelter, Missing, and more, as if grief could be curated into stages and lighting cues. And yet the sequence works, largely because Upano allows it to be messy. Jane panics. She knocks over urns. She is ashamed in public. The exhibit is not a museum of catharsis; it is a room full of triggers. It also becomes a place where the novel’s private drama is confronted by a larger claim: the town’s story does not belong to Jane and Kenji. Their romance is only one thread in a fabric made of many losses, many repairs.
That larger claim is where Upano’s writing shows its most distinctive DNA. Her sentences often move like tide and breath: sensuous but controlled, attentive to the material world – vine, wood, sweat, rust – while carrying metaphysical pressure underneath. She is especially good at the way objects become talismans without becoming symbols in the crude, school-assignment sense. The orange mug that once belonged to Jane’s father, washed up after the tsunami, travels through the book like a small, stubborn remainder: grief made portable. So do lei – pikake, maile, hilo – worn at moments of visibility, as if the body must be braided into something ceremonial to withstand being looked at. Even the Hawaiian lunar calendar enters not as exotic texture but as worldview: the “hoku ili,” the moon stranded between night and day, is a gorgeous image for the novel’s emotional condition, its characters caught between who they were and what happened.
Still, the book’s most powerful turn is not aesthetic but ethical. Upano refuses to let rebuilding be purely sentimental. She writes development, land, and housing as contested terrain – because it is. Outsiders buy lots. “Monster houses” threaten the neighborhood’s character and access. A church garden that feeds families becomes fenced off, food rotting behind chain link while a camera watches. These are not plot ornaments; they are the afterlife of disaster, the slow violence that follows the fast one. In this sense the novel sits comfortably beside recent climate- and community-conscious fiction like “The Light Pirate,” and it shares something of “Station Eleven’s” preoccupation with art after ruin, though Upano’s sensibility is less mythic, more municipal. Her book knows how budgets work. It knows how nonprofits run out of grants. It knows how relief becomes a bureaucracy, and how goodwill, without systems, can expire.
It also knows that disaster does not erase prior harm; it rearranges it. Kenji’s eventual decision to fly to Honolulu on Christmas Eve to visit his incarcerated father is one of the novel’s most startling and quietly brave choices. The prison visitor center – windowless, disinfectant-sharp, full of families in holiday pajamas – echoes the shelter in Hilo without equating the two. Kenji’s confrontation with the man who beat his mother is not redemptive, exactly. It is an accounting. Upano does not offer the false comfort of a clean apology. Instead she gives something harder and truer: the sense that forgiveness, when it happens, is less about excusing the past than about freeing the future from being solely a reaction to it. In the landscape of contemporary fiction, where the moral arc often bends toward either righteous severance or easy reconciliation, Upano charts a third path: contact without illusion.
By the time Jane’s five-day trip becomes a month, and then becomes a life, the novel has shifted from romance to something more interesting: the story of a woman learning that staying is not stagnation but courage. Jane swims not for time but endurance. She learns to hold her grief in ritual – coffee poured for the dead, flowers placed where the living once stood. She begins designing again, not as escape but as service: a pro bono tithe of craft to neighborhood continuity. The reveal that WMW Properties is Walter–Maile–Walter – Wally-Jun’s familial corporate joke turned community investment – is both funny and moving, and it crystallizes what the book believes about wealth: not that it corrupts inevitably, but that in a small town it can be treated as responsibility, a way of buying land back from predation.
The novel’s final stretch, set around Christmas and New Year’s, could have collapsed into wish fulfillment. Upano avoids that by keeping desire tethered to time. Jane and Kenji do not simply reunite; they begin again, slowly, in a mode that feels almost old-fashioned: postcards, distance as a channel rather than a wound. Their reconciliation is not framed as destiny but as choice – a decision to risk disappointment for the sake of something worth building. The New Year’s fireworks sequence at Walter’s restaurant – the one hundred thousand firecrackers, the adopted-and-adapted traditions, the sea and gunpowder and communal noise – is both celebratory and sobering. The world is loud with survival. Love, Upano suggests, is the quieter gamble underneath.
As a critic, one looks for what a book believes about the world, because style is finally a form of belief. “Everything to the Sea” believes that grief is not private property. It believes that community is not a vibe but labor – attendance, revision, sweat. It believes that in an era when we are inundated by images of catastrophe – floods, fires, earthquakes, wars – the moral question is not whether we can bear to watch, but what we do with what we’ve seen. Do we let it turn us into spectators of our own lives, fluent in outrage and poor at care? Or do we accept the less glamorous work of rebuilding: zoning meetings, compost heaps, contractor-grade trash bags, the awkward humility of asking for help?
There are places where Upano’s control shows – moments when the architecture of the novel, like Jane’s imagined structures, is almost too clean, too elegantly stressed for the messiness it contains. Kenji’s interiority can remain deliberately occluded, and a few late scenes risk the polish of earned wisdom arriving on schedule. But these are not failures so much as the marks of a writer whose instincts bend toward coherence – and who has, in a debut, already mastered a great deal of it.
To read “Everything to the Sea” in 2026 is to feel how intimately it speaks to our present without ever naming it directly. The story’s wave is fictional, but its atmosphere is familiar: a world where disasters arrive faster than institutions can respond, where housing and land become moral battlegrounds, where mutual aid is both salvation and exhaustion, where the future feels increasingly like a series of “aftershocks.” Upano’s accomplishment is to hold that contemporary dread in one hand and, in the other, a stubborn tenderness – not sentimental, not naïve, but practiced. Her characters do not “heal” so much as learn to live truthfully inside what happened, and to love anyway.
That is why this novel earns an 89 out of 100: because it is emotionally exacting, formally intelligent, and uncommonly wise about the relationship between private longing and public catastrophe. It offers a love story that does not pretend love is enough, and a disaster story that does not pretend disaster is the end. What remains, after the water, is the work – and the strange grace of choosing it.
The novel’s formal conceit is the quiet kind that feels inevitable once you’ve encountered it: a four-part structure borrowed from the Pacific Tsunami Museum’s language of “Initiation,” “Split,” “Amplification,” and “Run-Up.” It’s a clever scaffold, yes, but more importantly it becomes an ethic. The book is always asking what it means to name the phases of disaster as if they were stages in a romance or a life – as if grief could be diagrammed, as if the body could be persuaded by vocabulary. That tension, between the human urge to impose narrative and the ocean’s indifference to our plots, gives “Everything to the Sea” its steady undertow.
Upano begins in brightness, the kind that already contains its own shadow. Jane Ito, an aspiring architect with a sketchbook’s sense of control, meets Kenji Lee in Hilo with the charged inevitability of two local children who are old enough to think they’ve invented their own freedom. Their early chapters are humid with longing and foreshadowing: storms rolling in, a coastline that looks calm because it is not yet moving. Jane’s hunger is for elsewhere – for the continent, for ambition with measurable returns. Kenji’s hunger is harder to name: he wants to be good, to be useful, to be chosen. They fall into each other with the ease of youth and the slight panic of those who can sense time tightening.
Then the wave comes, and the novel’s emotional temperature changes. What is extraordinary about Upano’s tsunami is how quickly it becomes ordinary – not because the destruction is small, but because survival is a machine that starts running regardless of whether the psyche is ready. People queue. People register. People sleep in rows. People argue over socks and underwear and who gets to charge their phone first. Trauma arrives not only as terror but as logistics. In this, Upano joins a lineage of disaster writing that prefers the granular truth to the cinematic one: not the grand aerial shot, but the cot, the list, the smell of disinfectant, the unbearable intimacy of being alive among strangers. Rebecca Solnit’s “A Paradise Built in Hell” hovers nearby, as do the more solitary devastations of Sonali Deraniyagala’s “Wave” and Richard Lloyd Parry’s “Ghosts of the Tsunami,” but Upano’s emphasis is distinct: the community is not a backdrop for individual transformation. It is the protagonist.
Kenji’s post-wave arc is among the novel’s most finely observed. He becomes a builder in the broadest sense – assembling shelter, assembling a found family, assembling meaning out of wreckage and guilt. He takes in Logan, a boy teetering on the edge of becoming the kind of young man who confuses numbness for strength, and in doing so Kenji makes a choice that feels both altruistic and desperate: if he can keep someone else from falling apart, perhaps he can postpone his own collapse. His relationships with Loralei – fierce, corrective, tender in her own unsentimental way – and with the wider town are drawn with a realism that resists the easy halo we sometimes give “good” men. Kenji’s goodness is a muscle, and like any muscle it can cramp. It can become its own trap.
Jane, meanwhile, becomes a study in the particular shame of the survivor who fled. She ends up in California, professionally successful enough to tell herself she has made the correct choice, and emotionally stranded enough to know she is lying. Upano writes Jane’s ambition without contempt and her escape without absolution. It’s a difficult balance, especially now, when so many contemporary novels flatten their characters into either victims of systems or heroes of self-actualization. Jane is neither. She is simply a person shaped by loss and by the long American catechism that says leaving is the same thing as winning.
What brings Jane back is not epiphany but complication: a landslide, an estate, a town that has continued without her. One of the book’s finest sequences – precise, funny, charged with submerged history – unfolds in a Walmart at 11 p.m., where Kenji, in search of domestic fixtures and anonymity, collides with Jane under fluorescent light. The setting is perfect: the ease of sameness, the violence of being seen. Their encounter is not romantic; it is corrosive. Kenji is sharp in a way that surprises even him, using competence and local knowledge as a weapon. Jane, used to intellectual mastery, is forced into a humiliating kind of beginnerhood: the lot needs more than a cheap trimmer, and she needs more than an apology.
Upano understands that repair is not a single act but a series of humiliations willingly endured. Jane tries, badly, to clear her parents’ lot, then must accept help from Maile and Wally-Jun – later Walter – whose generosity is of the older, local kind: not performative, not transactional, sometimes overbearing, always rooted in the assumption that survival obligates you to others. Maile’s counsel, that helping and accepting help are both forms of doing right, carries the weight of lived philosophy rather than authorial lesson. It is also one of the book’s most contemporary arguments. In an age of burnout and “self-care” commodified into solitude, “Everything to the Sea” insists on mutual aid as not only ethical but necessary – a truth freshly legible after pandemic years, after wildfire seasons, after the televised recursion of disaster that has made so many Americans fluent in other people’s emergencies.
If “Everything to the Sea” has a set piece, it is the museum exhibit Kenji curates, titled “Aftershock.” This is where Upano’s thematic ambitions risk tipping into neatness – an exhibit that contains the town’s story in installations titled Before, Shelter, Missing, and more, as if grief could be curated into stages and lighting cues. And yet the sequence works, largely because Upano allows it to be messy. Jane panics. She knocks over urns. She is ashamed in public. The exhibit is not a museum of catharsis; it is a room full of triggers. It also becomes a place where the novel’s private drama is confronted by a larger claim: the town’s story does not belong to Jane and Kenji. Their romance is only one thread in a fabric made of many losses, many repairs.
That larger claim is where Upano’s writing shows its most distinctive DNA. Her sentences often move like tide and breath: sensuous but controlled, attentive to the material world – vine, wood, sweat, rust – while carrying metaphysical pressure underneath. She is especially good at the way objects become talismans without becoming symbols in the crude, school-assignment sense. The orange mug that once belonged to Jane’s father, washed up after the tsunami, travels through the book like a small, stubborn remainder: grief made portable. So do lei – pikake, maile, hilo – worn at moments of visibility, as if the body must be braided into something ceremonial to withstand being looked at. Even the Hawaiian lunar calendar enters not as exotic texture but as worldview: the “hoku ili,” the moon stranded between night and day, is a gorgeous image for the novel’s emotional condition, its characters caught between who they were and what happened.
Still, the book’s most powerful turn is not aesthetic but ethical. Upano refuses to let rebuilding be purely sentimental. She writes development, land, and housing as contested terrain – because it is. Outsiders buy lots. “Monster houses” threaten the neighborhood’s character and access. A church garden that feeds families becomes fenced off, food rotting behind chain link while a camera watches. These are not plot ornaments; they are the afterlife of disaster, the slow violence that follows the fast one. In this sense the novel sits comfortably beside recent climate- and community-conscious fiction like “The Light Pirate,” and it shares something of “Station Eleven’s” preoccupation with art after ruin, though Upano’s sensibility is less mythic, more municipal. Her book knows how budgets work. It knows how nonprofits run out of grants. It knows how relief becomes a bureaucracy, and how goodwill, without systems, can expire.
It also knows that disaster does not erase prior harm; it rearranges it. Kenji’s eventual decision to fly to Honolulu on Christmas Eve to visit his incarcerated father is one of the novel’s most startling and quietly brave choices. The prison visitor center – windowless, disinfectant-sharp, full of families in holiday pajamas – echoes the shelter in Hilo without equating the two. Kenji’s confrontation with the man who beat his mother is not redemptive, exactly. It is an accounting. Upano does not offer the false comfort of a clean apology. Instead she gives something harder and truer: the sense that forgiveness, when it happens, is less about excusing the past than about freeing the future from being solely a reaction to it. In the landscape of contemporary fiction, where the moral arc often bends toward either righteous severance or easy reconciliation, Upano charts a third path: contact without illusion.
By the time Jane’s five-day trip becomes a month, and then becomes a life, the novel has shifted from romance to something more interesting: the story of a woman learning that staying is not stagnation but courage. Jane swims not for time but endurance. She learns to hold her grief in ritual – coffee poured for the dead, flowers placed where the living once stood. She begins designing again, not as escape but as service: a pro bono tithe of craft to neighborhood continuity. The reveal that WMW Properties is Walter–Maile–Walter – Wally-Jun’s familial corporate joke turned community investment – is both funny and moving, and it crystallizes what the book believes about wealth: not that it corrupts inevitably, but that in a small town it can be treated as responsibility, a way of buying land back from predation.
The novel’s final stretch, set around Christmas and New Year’s, could have collapsed into wish fulfillment. Upano avoids that by keeping desire tethered to time. Jane and Kenji do not simply reunite; they begin again, slowly, in a mode that feels almost old-fashioned: postcards, distance as a channel rather than a wound. Their reconciliation is not framed as destiny but as choice – a decision to risk disappointment for the sake of something worth building. The New Year’s fireworks sequence at Walter’s restaurant – the one hundred thousand firecrackers, the adopted-and-adapted traditions, the sea and gunpowder and communal noise – is both celebratory and sobering. The world is loud with survival. Love, Upano suggests, is the quieter gamble underneath.
As a critic, one looks for what a book believes about the world, because style is finally a form of belief. “Everything to the Sea” believes that grief is not private property. It believes that community is not a vibe but labor – attendance, revision, sweat. It believes that in an era when we are inundated by images of catastrophe – floods, fires, earthquakes, wars – the moral question is not whether we can bear to watch, but what we do with what we’ve seen. Do we let it turn us into spectators of our own lives, fluent in outrage and poor at care? Or do we accept the less glamorous work of rebuilding: zoning meetings, compost heaps, contractor-grade trash bags, the awkward humility of asking for help?
There are places where Upano’s control shows – moments when the architecture of the novel, like Jane’s imagined structures, is almost too clean, too elegantly stressed for the messiness it contains. Kenji’s interiority can remain deliberately occluded, and a few late scenes risk the polish of earned wisdom arriving on schedule. But these are not failures so much as the marks of a writer whose instincts bend toward coherence – and who has, in a debut, already mastered a great deal of it.
To read “Everything to the Sea” in 2026 is to feel how intimately it speaks to our present without ever naming it directly. The story’s wave is fictional, but its atmosphere is familiar: a world where disasters arrive faster than institutions can respond, where housing and land become moral battlegrounds, where mutual aid is both salvation and exhaustion, where the future feels increasingly like a series of “aftershocks.” Upano’s accomplishment is to hold that contemporary dread in one hand and, in the other, a stubborn tenderness – not sentimental, not naïve, but practiced. Her characters do not “heal” so much as learn to live truthfully inside what happened, and to love anyway.
That is why this novel earns an 89 out of 100: because it is emotionally exacting, formally intelligent, and uncommonly wise about the relationship between private longing and public catastrophe. It offers a love story that does not pretend love is enough, and a disaster story that does not pretend disaster is the end. What remains, after the water, is the work – and the strange grace of choosing it.
Read
December 29, 2025Everything to the Sea by Alicia Upano is a coming of age novel that spans more than a decade. Set in Hawai’i, the novel follows Jane in her last summer home from college before she graduates and sets her sights on the ‘main continent’ for her post-college life. Enter Kenji. Jane had initially planned to entertain Kenji only as a summer fling, but their relationship grew more intense as the summer days ticked away, and she convinces him to come with her when she returns to her college campus. That decision will be one that changes the course of both of their lives when a few days later they watch a tsunami sweep away their hometown. The remaining majority of the novel follows how their paths diverge and reconverge again and again in the aftermath and aftershocks of the natural disaster.
I read through this novel pretty quickly. I found Jane and Kenji’s story compelling for the most part, and was really interested to read about the island in recovery, and Kenji’s dedication to being part of the rebuilding of Hilo. The way that Kenji dealt with his survivor grief read like a realistic depiction of how this might play out. I also appreciated the nuance that Upano wrote about the aftermath of the disaster. The bureaucracy and politics following a natural disaster is in some ways worse than the natural disaster itself, and Upano did not shy away from this here. She also wrote beautifully about the way a community comes together in the after. I thought this section was some of the most interesting and strongest written of the novel.
That being said, I really did not like Jane’s character and for this reason found it very difficult to care about what happened to her. While I can forgive Jane some of her more childish behaviors in her early 20s, I found many of her unforgiveable, and further, unrealistic? If a tsunami came and washed my family into the sea, I would be on the first plane/boat/train back home to look for them. Thus, Jane’s decision to stay back at school, especially after Kenji asked her to come back with him, was confusing to me. This was the first of many selfish and self-destructive behaviors that made it difficult, at least for me, to care about Jane’s character, and her outcome(s). In nearly all her relationships she was a taker, it was as if she expected the entire world to always revolve around her. Though her character arcs a bit by the end of the novel, it was too late, I had already divested. I love a flawed/grey character but I did not find her to have many? redeeming qualities.
Despite this, I still thought Everything to the Sea was an interesting read and would recommend it!
Thank you to William Morrow and Company Publishing, Alicia Upano, and NetGalley for an e-copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review.
I read through this novel pretty quickly. I found Jane and Kenji’s story compelling for the most part, and was really interested to read about the island in recovery, and Kenji’s dedication to being part of the rebuilding of Hilo. The way that Kenji dealt with his survivor grief read like a realistic depiction of how this might play out. I also appreciated the nuance that Upano wrote about the aftermath of the disaster. The bureaucracy and politics following a natural disaster is in some ways worse than the natural disaster itself, and Upano did not shy away from this here. She also wrote beautifully about the way a community comes together in the after. I thought this section was some of the most interesting and strongest written of the novel.
That being said, I really did not like Jane’s character and for this reason found it very difficult to care about what happened to her. While I can forgive Jane some of her more childish behaviors in her early 20s, I found many of her unforgiveable, and further, unrealistic? If a tsunami came and washed my family into the sea, I would be on the first plane/boat/train back home to look for them. Thus, Jane’s decision to stay back at school, especially after Kenji asked her to come back with him, was confusing to me. This was the first of many selfish and self-destructive behaviors that made it difficult, at least for me, to care about Jane’s character, and her outcome(s). In nearly all her relationships she was a taker, it was as if she expected the entire world to always revolve around her. Though her character arcs a bit by the end of the novel, it was too late, I had already divested. I love a flawed/grey character but I did not find her to have many? redeeming qualities.
Despite this, I still thought Everything to the Sea was an interesting read and would recommend it!
Thank you to William Morrow and Company Publishing, Alicia Upano, and NetGalley for an e-copy of the novel in exchange for an honest review.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
This book caught me off guard. I thought I knew exactly what I was picking up, and somewhere along the way I realized I didn’t. Alicia Upano completely changed my expectations with Everything to the Sea. William Morrow, thank you so much for the gifted copy.
I went in expecting a romance. There is one, and it’s important, but honestly? The story that stayed with me was about grief. About home. About what happens when life splits into a before and an after, and you don’t really recognize yourself anymore.
Jane and Kenji aren’t perfect people. Not even close. I liked that.
Well…most of the time.
Jane tested my patience more than once. I understood why she wanted to run from Hilo, but there were moments when I wanted to tell her, “Please go home.” Then I’d stop and remember that people don’t always make the choices that make sense from the outside. Grief is messy. Really messy.
Kenji was the one I kept rooting for. He stayed. He helped rebuild. He kept showing up, even when it would’ve been easier not to. I admired that about him.
One thing I wasn’t expecting was how much I ended up caring about everyone around them. The neighbors. The friends. The people trying to piece a community back together one small step at a time. Those were some of my favorite parts.
And the setting…wow.
I’ve been lucky enough to visit Hawai’i, and this didn’t feel like a travel brochure. It felt lived in. The food, the rain, the ocean, the people—it all felt connected. By the end, Hilo wasn’t just where the story happened. It felt like someone I knew.
I will say the middle slowed down for me. A few times I caught myself thinking, “Come on, somebody just say what you’re feeling already.” But I also think that frustration fit these characters. They spent years carrying things they should’ve said out loud.
“To love was to know that your life contained something worth the risk.”
I kept thinking about that after I finished.
★★★★☆
This wasn’t the emotional love story I expected. It turned out to be something quieter. A story about healing, forgiveness, and finding your way back after life knocks everything sideways.
I’d recommend this to readers who don’t mind taking their time with a book, who enjoy flawed characters, and who like stories where community matters just as much as romance.
What’s a book that ended up being completely different from what you expected…but you loved it anyway?
#EverythingToTheSea #AliciaUpano #WilliamMorrow #BookReview #Bookstagram #NetGalley #LiteraryFiction #ReadMoreBooks #BooksBooksBooks #BookCommunity
I went in expecting a romance. There is one, and it’s important, but honestly? The story that stayed with me was about grief. About home. About what happens when life splits into a before and an after, and you don’t really recognize yourself anymore.
Jane and Kenji aren’t perfect people. Not even close. I liked that.
Well…most of the time.
Jane tested my patience more than once. I understood why she wanted to run from Hilo, but there were moments when I wanted to tell her, “Please go home.” Then I’d stop and remember that people don’t always make the choices that make sense from the outside. Grief is messy. Really messy.
Kenji was the one I kept rooting for. He stayed. He helped rebuild. He kept showing up, even when it would’ve been easier not to. I admired that about him.
One thing I wasn’t expecting was how much I ended up caring about everyone around them. The neighbors. The friends. The people trying to piece a community back together one small step at a time. Those were some of my favorite parts.
And the setting…wow.
I’ve been lucky enough to visit Hawai’i, and this didn’t feel like a travel brochure. It felt lived in. The food, the rain, the ocean, the people—it all felt connected. By the end, Hilo wasn’t just where the story happened. It felt like someone I knew.
I will say the middle slowed down for me. A few times I caught myself thinking, “Come on, somebody just say what you’re feeling already.” But I also think that frustration fit these characters. They spent years carrying things they should’ve said out loud.
“To love was to know that your life contained something worth the risk.”
I kept thinking about that after I finished.
★★★★☆
This wasn’t the emotional love story I expected. It turned out to be something quieter. A story about healing, forgiveness, and finding your way back after life knocks everything sideways.
I’d recommend this to readers who don’t mind taking their time with a book, who enjoy flawed characters, and who like stories where community matters just as much as romance.
What’s a book that ended up being completely different from what you expected…but you loved it anyway?
#EverythingToTheSea #AliciaUpano #WilliamMorrow #BookReview #Bookstagram #NetGalley #LiteraryFiction #ReadMoreBooks #BooksBooksBooks #BookCommunity
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Loss is a concept that every human can understand. It essentially is the essence of being human. The mortality of man and living with that eventuality. Everything to the Sea, by Alicia Upano is a new novel centered around the lives of many Hawaiian Islanders following the wake of a large tsunami. In the course of mere minutes, the people on the island of Hilo lose everything to the sea and must learn to live with the ultimate loss of family and home. Though the story is fiction, the fact that the island of Hilo Hawaii did suffer tsunamis in 1946 and 1960 makes the story real for the reader .
Two main characters, Jane and Kenji are young adults, enjoying a summer fling and staying on Oahu when a tsunami caught their home island of Hilo unawares, killing their families and destroying much of their island. Each deals with the tragedy and their grief in completely different ways. Kenji returns to face the devastation and rebuild, while Jane runs away to save her sanity and her remorse over not answering her mother's final phone call. The novel follows their lives as they weave together new worlds both together and apart and find forgiveness and love in the process.
I was first drawn to Upano's novel by the setting and situation. I have always harbored a fascination with earth processes and have found tsunamis compelling. The extreme force of nature and the water is unfathomable to a land-locked Kansas girl. The oceans and beaches along with the Hawaiian culture provides a rich basis for Upano's story telling and she does an outstanding job of making the story come to life for the reader. I personally could connect to the book because I have recently faced loss of family members and feel the sting of the separation from them. I have also been fortunate to visit Hawaii and experience some of the culture, so the story felt very authentic and real to me.
Due to Upano's strong character development and her voice in her writing, I was drawn into the world she created from the first page and I rushed through the story to learn what would happen to the characters, simply not able to put the story down until I had finished it.
I strongly suggest reading Everything to the Sea, Alicia Upano's debut novel being published July 14th through William Morrow Publishers.
I want to thank NetGalley for the advance reader's copy of Everything to the Sea, in exchange for an honest review.
#EverythingtotheSea #NetGalley
Two main characters, Jane and Kenji are young adults, enjoying a summer fling and staying on Oahu when a tsunami caught their home island of Hilo unawares, killing their families and destroying much of their island. Each deals with the tragedy and their grief in completely different ways. Kenji returns to face the devastation and rebuild, while Jane runs away to save her sanity and her remorse over not answering her mother's final phone call. The novel follows their lives as they weave together new worlds both together and apart and find forgiveness and love in the process.
I was first drawn to Upano's novel by the setting and situation. I have always harbored a fascination with earth processes and have found tsunamis compelling. The extreme force of nature and the water is unfathomable to a land-locked Kansas girl. The oceans and beaches along with the Hawaiian culture provides a rich basis for Upano's story telling and she does an outstanding job of making the story come to life for the reader. I personally could connect to the book because I have recently faced loss of family members and feel the sting of the separation from them. I have also been fortunate to visit Hawaii and experience some of the culture, so the story felt very authentic and real to me.
Due to Upano's strong character development and her voice in her writing, I was drawn into the world she created from the first page and I rushed through the story to learn what would happen to the characters, simply not able to put the story down until I had finished it.
I strongly suggest reading Everything to the Sea, Alicia Upano's debut novel being published July 14th through William Morrow Publishers.
I want to thank NetGalley for the advance reader's copy of Everything to the Sea, in exchange for an honest review.
#EverythingtotheSea #NetGalley
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
✨ Natural disaster survival (tsunami)
✨ Coming of age
✨ Right person, wrong time
✨ Second chance romance
✨ Small island community (Hawaii setting)
✨ Aspiring architect heroine
✨ Personal growth
✨ Rebuilding after tragedy
A riveting story about a sudden tsunami that devastates a small island community and abruptly cuts short a young couple's budding romance. The pages flew by, and I couldn't put it down.
This is an emotional, character driven novel that had me reaching for the tissues more than once. Alicia Upano's debut is a powerful, unforgettable story that will leave you wondering how you would rebuild your life after an unimaginable tragedy.
This novel explores so many meaningful themes, including love after loss, healing from grief, choosing between staying home or chasing your dreams, the strength of family and community, rebuilding after tragedy, and finding hope after heartbreak.
I appreciated that the FMC was flawed and watching her grow throughout the story made her journey feel authentic. While I struggled to relate to some of her decisions, I loved seeing where she ended up by the end. The MMC completely stole the show for me. His compassion, strong work ethic, and unwavering dedication to his family and community made him impossible not to love. At times my heart broke for him when life didn't unfold the way he deserved.
***Potential spoilers below***
My only small qualm was with the resolution of the romance. The story builds such a compelling will they, won't they dynamic that I found myself really invested in their relationship. While I understand the ending is intentionally left open to interpretation, I personally would have loved just a bit more clarity or closure. I'm a reader who gravitates toward a clearly defined happily ever after, so I was hoping for a more definitive resolution. That said, it didn't diminish my enjoyment of this beautifully written story, and these characters and their journey will stay with me for a long time.
I'm so excited to see what Alicia Upano writes next!
Thank you to William Morrow for the gorgeous hardcover edition of this incredible debut. It is one I'll treasure.
4.5 beautiful stars!
✨ Coming of age
✨ Right person, wrong time
✨ Second chance romance
✨ Small island community (Hawaii setting)
✨ Aspiring architect heroine
✨ Personal growth
✨ Rebuilding after tragedy
A riveting story about a sudden tsunami that devastates a small island community and abruptly cuts short a young couple's budding romance. The pages flew by, and I couldn't put it down.
This is an emotional, character driven novel that had me reaching for the tissues more than once. Alicia Upano's debut is a powerful, unforgettable story that will leave you wondering how you would rebuild your life after an unimaginable tragedy.
This novel explores so many meaningful themes, including love after loss, healing from grief, choosing between staying home or chasing your dreams, the strength of family and community, rebuilding after tragedy, and finding hope after heartbreak.
I appreciated that the FMC was flawed and watching her grow throughout the story made her journey feel authentic. While I struggled to relate to some of her decisions, I loved seeing where she ended up by the end. The MMC completely stole the show for me. His compassion, strong work ethic, and unwavering dedication to his family and community made him impossible not to love. At times my heart broke for him when life didn't unfold the way he deserved.
***Potential spoilers below***
My only small qualm was with the resolution of the romance. The story builds such a compelling will they, won't they dynamic that I found myself really invested in their relationship. While I understand the ending is intentionally left open to interpretation, I personally would have loved just a bit more clarity or closure. I'm a reader who gravitates toward a clearly defined happily ever after, so I was hoping for a more definitive resolution. That said, it didn't diminish my enjoyment of this beautifully written story, and these characters and their journey will stay with me for a long time.
I'm so excited to see what Alicia Upano writes next!
Thank you to William Morrow for the gorgeous hardcover edition of this incredible debut. It is one I'll treasure.
4.5 beautiful stars!
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
⭐️⭐️⭐️✨ (3.75/5)
One of my favorite things about reading is discovering places and cultures I don’t often encounter in fiction. Most novels I’ve read that are set in Hawaii focus on tourists or mainland visitors, so Everything to the Sea offered a refreshing perspective through the eyes of an Indigenous Hawaiian family.
Janie is spending the summer before her senior year of college working and living with her parents, hoping to save enough money to finish school. Along the way, she meets Kenji, a local young man, and what begins as a casual summer romance slowly grows into something much more meaningful. But everything changes when a devastating tsunami reshapes not only the coastline, but the lives of everyone in its path.
At its heart, this is a coming-of-age novel about the moment life forces you to grow up. Janie’s transition into adulthood feels authentic and deeply tied to the power of the sea, making the title especially fitting. The romance remains a gentle thread running through the story rather than its primary focus, and I enjoyed watching Janie and Kenji continually find their way back to one another.
For a debut, Alicia Upano shows real promise. The prose is often beautiful, the characterization is strong, and Janie is a thoughtful, relatable protagonist. I also appreciated learning more about contemporary Hawaiian culture through the story rather than feeling like I was reading a history lesson.
The novel is deliberately paced, and on audio I occasionally found my attention drifting enough that I had to rewind a few chapters. Readers who enjoy a faster-moving plot may find it a bit slow, but those who appreciate character-driven stories that unfold gradually will likely connect with its rhythm.
Overall, this is a thoughtful and memorable debut with a unique premise and a strong sense of place. I’d especially recommend it to readers looking to explore different cultures, enjoy literary coming-of-age stories, and don’t mind a slow-burn narrative with just a touch of romance.
Thank you to the Libro.fm Influencer Program for providing me with a complimentary audiobook. All thoughts are my own.
One of my favorite things about reading is discovering places and cultures I don’t often encounter in fiction. Most novels I’ve read that are set in Hawaii focus on tourists or mainland visitors, so Everything to the Sea offered a refreshing perspective through the eyes of an Indigenous Hawaiian family.
Janie is spending the summer before her senior year of college working and living with her parents, hoping to save enough money to finish school. Along the way, she meets Kenji, a local young man, and what begins as a casual summer romance slowly grows into something much more meaningful. But everything changes when a devastating tsunami reshapes not only the coastline, but the lives of everyone in its path.
At its heart, this is a coming-of-age novel about the moment life forces you to grow up. Janie’s transition into adulthood feels authentic and deeply tied to the power of the sea, making the title especially fitting. The romance remains a gentle thread running through the story rather than its primary focus, and I enjoyed watching Janie and Kenji continually find their way back to one another.
For a debut, Alicia Upano shows real promise. The prose is often beautiful, the characterization is strong, and Janie is a thoughtful, relatable protagonist. I also appreciated learning more about contemporary Hawaiian culture through the story rather than feeling like I was reading a history lesson.
The novel is deliberately paced, and on audio I occasionally found my attention drifting enough that I had to rewind a few chapters. Readers who enjoy a faster-moving plot may find it a bit slow, but those who appreciate character-driven stories that unfold gradually will likely connect with its rhythm.
Overall, this is a thoughtful and memorable debut with a unique premise and a strong sense of place. I’d especially recommend it to readers looking to explore different cultures, enjoy literary coming-of-age stories, and don’t mind a slow-burn narrative with just a touch of romance.
Thank you to the Libro.fm Influencer Program for providing me with a complimentary audiobook. All thoughts are my own.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
🎧 Audio Review: Narration was enjoyable to listen to.
📝 Story Review: While I enjoyed the tragic natural disaster aspect and how people came together after to heal and rebuild, I wasn’t a fan of the romance/relationship aspect.
I didn’t feel the chemistry between the two MC’s. Could not find the FMC likable. And even when they had a second chance together, she flew off the handle and shut down the same way she did the first time. Despite them being older/more mature, she still acted like an immature child. Poor communication with both MC’s. And it was as if after 7 years apart, instead of discussing what broke them up and moving past that, they just used sex to jump back into a relationship. So really, no wonder it didn’t last long the second time either. Third time’s a charm right?
That being said, I found the other aspect of the story to be very heartfelt and moving. Natural disasters cause such crippling devastation and that was portrayed very well in this book. The way people banded together to heal and rebuild was moving and well written I thought.
My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3.5/5
Spice Level: 🌶️ 1/5
Vibes: Young love; heartache; loss; grief; coping in very different ways.
Tropes 👇
- Coming of age trials
- NA relationship drama
- Toxic relationship dynamics/poor communication/quick to blame
- Tragedy = two separate reactions
- Home vs School/higher aspirations
- Spanning close to a decade
- Dealing with grief vs trying to ignore it
- LGBTQ rep (side characters)
- BIPOC rep
CW’s 👇
- Tsunami & it’s devastating effects
- Loss of loved ones
- Suicide
- Multiple breakups in one relationship
- Drug use
- Alcohol use
- Mudslide & its effects
Audio Release Date: July 14, 2026
Audio Run Time: 10 hrs, 8 mins
Narrated By: Barrie Kealoha
Genre: NA Multicultural Fiction
POV: Third Person; Dual
Thank you to NetGalley and HarperAudio Adult for this ALC in return for my honest review.
📝 Story Review: While I enjoyed the tragic natural disaster aspect and how people came together after to heal and rebuild, I wasn’t a fan of the romance/relationship aspect.
I didn’t feel the chemistry between the two MC’s. Could not find the FMC likable. And even when they had a second chance together, she flew off the handle and shut down the same way she did the first time. Despite them being older/more mature, she still acted like an immature child. Poor communication with both MC’s. And it was as if after 7 years apart, instead of discussing what broke them up and moving past that, they just used sex to jump back into a relationship. So really, no wonder it didn’t last long the second time either. Third time’s a charm right?
That being said, I found the other aspect of the story to be very heartfelt and moving. Natural disasters cause such crippling devastation and that was portrayed very well in this book. The way people banded together to heal and rebuild was moving and well written I thought.
My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 3.5/5
Spice Level: 🌶️ 1/5
Vibes: Young love; heartache; loss; grief; coping in very different ways.
Tropes 👇
- Coming of age trials
- NA relationship drama
- Toxic relationship dynamics/poor communication/quick to blame
- Tragedy = two separate reactions
- Home vs School/higher aspirations
- Spanning close to a decade
- Dealing with grief vs trying to ignore it
- LGBTQ rep (side characters)
- BIPOC rep
CW’s 👇
- Tsunami & it’s devastating effects
- Loss of loved ones
- Suicide
- Multiple breakups in one relationship
- Drug use
- Alcohol use
- Mudslide & its effects
Audio Release Date: July 14, 2026
Audio Run Time: 10 hrs, 8 mins
Narrated By: Barrie Kealoha
Genre: NA Multicultural Fiction
POV: Third Person; Dual
Thank you to NetGalley and HarperAudio Adult for this ALC in return for my honest review.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Everything to the Sea is an epic story of a young Hilo boy and girl who fall in love, but when a tsunami hits their town, it devastates their worlds. The description of the island is beautiful and I enjoyed reading about their customs and traditions. Their love story is angsty and while I wished they had communicated better, they were grieving the loss of their loved ones and the world that they knew.
Jane and Kenji fall in love the summer before her senior year of college. She is working as a waitress and he is working construction. When it's time for her to return to school in Honolulu, she invites him to fly back with her and see what it’s like where she lives. (She loves the city.) While they are away, a local earthquake causes a big wave to hit Hilo, destroying most of the town. Kenji returns home to help survivors and asks Jane to come too, but now that her parents are gone, she decides not to go back. Instead, she goes with her best friend to California to follow her dream to study architecture. Kenji was hurt that Jane didn’t come back with him to help. He worked with his friend, Loralei, to help the survivors with food and shelter in Hilo. Jane and Kenji don’t see each other for seven years, but their paths cross again and they end up together. But something happens to split them apart again and it’s very angsty. I didn’t always love Jane’s actions and I wished Kenji would open up more with her, but they eventually find their way back to each other.
The story shines when we see the way the community comes together to support each other and overcome their tragedies. There are some characters that left a lasting impression, especially Loralei and Benny, a young orphan. I enjoyed this story of love, grief, and the survival of their found family. Thank you to the author, William Morrow and NetGalley for the ARC. 07/14
Jane and Kenji fall in love the summer before her senior year of college. She is working as a waitress and he is working construction. When it's time for her to return to school in Honolulu, she invites him to fly back with her and see what it’s like where she lives. (She loves the city.) While they are away, a local earthquake causes a big wave to hit Hilo, destroying most of the town. Kenji returns home to help survivors and asks Jane to come too, but now that her parents are gone, she decides not to go back. Instead, she goes with her best friend to California to follow her dream to study architecture. Kenji was hurt that Jane didn’t come back with him to help. He worked with his friend, Loralei, to help the survivors with food and shelter in Hilo. Jane and Kenji don’t see each other for seven years, but their paths cross again and they end up together. But something happens to split them apart again and it’s very angsty. I didn’t always love Jane’s actions and I wished Kenji would open up more with her, but they eventually find their way back to each other.
The story shines when we see the way the community comes together to support each other and overcome their tragedies. There are some characters that left a lasting impression, especially Loralei and Benny, a young orphan. I enjoyed this story of love, grief, and the survival of their found family. Thank you to the author, William Morrow and NetGalley for the ARC. 07/14
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
As the author writes in her notes at the end of this book: this is romance story but also a story of grief. Indeed, in this coming-of-age story, the budding romance of two young Hawaiians comes apart when a devastating tsunami strikes Hilo, separates them as they deal with the grief and loss, but in restoring their home, the two are reunited.
Jane Ito is an architectural student when she meets Kenji Lee. A summer romance ensues but Jane is determined to return to school when a tsunami strikes Hilo causing death and destruction. In sour if this Jane leaves and Benji stays to help rebuild his home. Seven years later Jane is an architect at a prestigious San Francisco firm that’s invoked with Hilo’s rebirth. Thrown together again, Jane and Benji delicately work together to renew themselves, their live, their home and their identity.
The both is divided into four parts. Part I focuses on Jane and how she sees herself and deals with the impact of the tsunami on herself and her family. Part II focuses on Benji and his reaction to the tsunami and his determination to stay and help his community rebuild. Parts III and IV deal with Jane and Benji’s reunion and renewal told in alternating POVs.
This is really a very simple story - and a character-driven one. It focuses on an eight year period in the lives of two young people and how they handle loss. There is such poignancy but intense resilience that emerges in the telling of how two young lovers are able to find their inner selves, forgive the other and renew not only their home but their love for each other.
This is a perfect book for people interested in a coming-of-age second chance romance that’s more about the love of home and community than the passion love engenders. Such a deeply moving book.
My thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for granting me access to this ARC.
Jane Ito is an architectural student when she meets Kenji Lee. A summer romance ensues but Jane is determined to return to school when a tsunami strikes Hilo causing death and destruction. In sour if this Jane leaves and Benji stays to help rebuild his home. Seven years later Jane is an architect at a prestigious San Francisco firm that’s invoked with Hilo’s rebirth. Thrown together again, Jane and Benji delicately work together to renew themselves, their live, their home and their identity.
The both is divided into four parts. Part I focuses on Jane and how she sees herself and deals with the impact of the tsunami on herself and her family. Part II focuses on Benji and his reaction to the tsunami and his determination to stay and help his community rebuild. Parts III and IV deal with Jane and Benji’s reunion and renewal told in alternating POVs.
This is really a very simple story - and a character-driven one. It focuses on an eight year period in the lives of two young people and how they handle loss. There is such poignancy but intense resilience that emerges in the telling of how two young lovers are able to find their inner selves, forgive the other and renew not only their home but their love for each other.
This is a perfect book for people interested in a coming-of-age second chance romance that’s more about the love of home and community than the passion love engenders. Such a deeply moving book.
My thanks to NetGalley and William Morrow for granting me access to this ARC.
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