Full of sea-based magical realism and sci fi elements, reading this felt like swimming: sometimes floating, sometimes speed swimming.

Wend (neurodivergent and nonbinary) takes a chance by offering themself as crew on Viola's boat in exchange for Wend's stories. With all too real dreams, Wend, Viola, and Aljon make their way to Hawai'i, where Wend rediscovers personal connections and uncovers a mystery.

I absolutely love the way neurodivergence was represented in this novel. It's not often I read about older protagonists so having the majority of the cast in their 60s was a really great change too. The queer rep was also fantastic with a pan and nonbinary MC and supporting characters that are ace, Sapphic, and poly. The pacing was a little rough with the beginning being very slow which made the last third feel jam-packed by comparison. However, I LOVED the found family aspect and thoroughly enjoyed the magical realism in the flying/swimming dreams.

Thanks to NetGalley and Atthis Arts for this ARC.

Unfortunately I decided not to finish Be the Sea, so my review is that of the first 20%.

In my opinion, the blurb did not do a good job of describing this book. Yes, it is about a neurodivergent person telling their life story, but there is nothing magical, or extraordinary about their life, aside from the fact that they are neurodivergent. Maybe the magical things happen after they reach their destination in Hawai'i?

The pacing is very slow. We learn the main character, Wend's backgound in detail, as well as all their coping mechanisms, and familiarise ourselves with the way their brain works. This, I find is a good way to introduce neurodivergent people to those who never met one in person, (like myself.)

All in all, thank you for the opportunity to read this book. I really enjoyed the sci-fi-esque detailed descriptions of the equipment and the main character's scientific discoveries.

(4.5 stars)

Set in the future, humans have become more aware of the impacts we have on our environment and have finally made proper strides in sustainability. This book follows Wend, a marine biologist as they sail with Viola (a marine photographer) and Aljon (a talented cook) as they make their way to Hawai'i as well as what happens after their journey.

I loved the characters in this. Mostly. And I think that this greatly contributed to my enjoyment as this story is very character driven. Yes, plot happens to them (things get pretty intense towards the middle!) , but I felt like the focus is always on the characters. I absolutely loved Wend and found them incredibly relatable as a neurodivergent non-binary person who works in biology. I also adored Aljon (an asexual person who needs to escape from people and their drama) who I also saw a lot of myself in. Although we saw less of them as they only really appeared later, I also loved getting to get to know most of the rest of the cast. I loved the diversity and well-executed representation of the variability of human relationships. That being said, there were other characters I was less fond of. While people like her definitely exist, I very much disliked Shelley and her hostility. Most disappointingly, I feel like we never fully get to know Viola, even though she has spent so much tie with Wend. Although I do wonder how much this is due to how other closer relationships are written about.

Although the characters are delightful and there is some beautiful found family in the pages, this book does delve into some darker themes. I found myself having to put this down a couple of times. But I found it all to have been written respectfully and believably - this was definitely not the "I am mad now" kind of need to put the book down, but rather the "well this has brought up some feelings I need to process" variety. But contrasting that was a much more accepting world than the one I am familiar with. While there is some queerphobia and the like, it's so much more normalised (the fact that so few people respond to Wend's pronouns!) and the characters are largely so respectful of each other and their boundaries. This and the more eco conscious world are really so beautiful to see.

If you love well-developed queer and/or neurodivergent characters, found family, the ocean and mysterious dreams I can definitely recommend this book. Things may develop slowly, but I loved the journey that the author has taken me on.

I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. As always, all opinions are my own.

(Also, I would just like to add that the author has an impressive knowledge of sea life and explored this in a very creative way!)

*I received a copy of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.*

*Be The Sea* is a solarpunk scifi set in the near future - in 2039, to be exact. We follow Wend, a marine microbiologist as they sail from the Marquesas to Hawai’i and then settle in Hilo. This book was rather slow paced, which would typically turn me off a book, but in this it just felt like a relaxed, leisurely pace. If you don’t like slow-paced books, I would definitely give this a chance anyway, because it really felt like it fitted the book.

I loved the world building in this book. Although it’s set in our world, it’s set in a part of the world I’m completely unfamiliar with, and in this book the world has changed a lot in 15 years. Although a lot of damage had been suffered through the climate crisis, the world was also finally starting to change for the better.

I also really enjoyed most of the characters in this book. My favourites were Aljon and Matt, but almost all of them were people I’d love to be friends with. Personally, I found both Viola and Shelly very frustrating, especially Shelly and her combativeness whenever she even slightly disagreed with someone, but overall the character cast was really lovely.

This book was also incredibly inclusive. The characters have a wide variety of sexualities, genders, relationship styles and other identities, and the communities shown are far better at embracing the traditional ownership and knowledge of the land. It felt so soothing to see a vision of the world that accepts people how they are.

*Be The Sea* was a delightful read that I got to enjoy taking my time with, and I’d highly recommend it to anyone interested.

I found this story interesting, and I really enjoy that the main character Wend was a great source representation for neurodiversity and lgbt identities. I dont see a lot of nonbinary representation, especially not in stories with non-teenage/young adult main characters. For me, the main issue I had was the pacing as things either tending to happen too fast or too slow. Otherwise I really liked the setting-- the author was very descriptive so it let you really visualize where they were.

This was one of the rare books where I loved taking my time with it! I feel like that also fit well with the author style, taking the time to absorb the nuanced bits and hints, and not just racing over them and them getting lost in all the words.

I really loved slowly getting to know Wend more and more through their stories and emotions.
The world-building of one of our possible futures was very well done, and I definitely learned things about marine biology!

One thing that gradually stood out to me most, was how gently inclusive this whole book is. So much variety in ability levels, identities, backgrounds, neurodiversity, love styles and more. It felt like a warm bath.