I received and ARC of this book from the publisher to review. I DNF'd this book. It was just much too confusing for me. Nothing is really explained and you go from the main characters flashbacks to present time with no indication of which is which. Everything is personified for example the house and a robot but it seems as if she's talking about a person and you REALLY have to pay attention to understand that she's simply referring to a house. This book just wasn't for me but I'm certain plenty of other people will enjoy it.

4.5 Stars

CWs: familial death and disappearance; internalized ableism; some descriptions of blood and graphic injury; self harm, suicide ideation, and suicide attempts; references to terminal illness; some sexual content

This book absolutely fucked me up, and then continued to fuck me up in the absolute best and most relentless way.

I already loved Joan He from her debut, Descendant of the Crane, which is one of the most distinctive, evocative, and emotional historical fantasy stories I've ever read. To then see her turn around and write this fast-paced, mind-blowing, intricately-imagined dystopian sci-fi that contains approximately 5,000 plot twists just leaves me in complete awe of her range and talent as an author. Joan He was already an auto-buy author for me, and this incredible sophomore release just completely validated that choice on my part.

The Ones We're Meant to Find is like if Want by Cindy Pon met Ready Player One but then the violent ramifications of climate change entered the chat. And yet even that description doesn't do it justice, because it's wholly and completely its own. This is a story that imagines such intricate technologies and futuristic ways of life, and projects the very real environmental crises we face today to the absolute extreme, and questions how we use technological advancements to either address those issues or shield ourselves from them.

It's very much a story about privilege and power, and how they interact with and contribute to humanitarian crises. One of the main characters, Kasey, definitely comes from a rich and powerful family, with access to many technological resources, and the story explores how she is both complicit within the system but also has the means to destroy it and create something to help all of humankind, not just the mega rich who can afford to live in sky cities and spend all their time in virtual reality. In fact that's a major theme in the story: how corporations and individuals are both complicit in the erosion of the world and victims of that very same phenomenon.

At the end of the day, this is a story that asks what kind of future we can look forward to if we continue on our current trajectory, and are any of us owed a future at all if we only ever choose to look away from the systems that harm us and others? It's about a deeply broken and and complicated bond between sisters and their endless need to prove themselves to each other. It's about reclaiming agency and your right to choose, especially when it seems like the fate of the world has already been decided for you. It's about how our ability to choose is what makes us human, but it's also a story that questions where humanity begins and ends.

The only thing that kept this from being a five star book for me was wanting a little bit more from a couple of the relationship dynamics. The two sisters each have respective relationships with two other characters we meet throughout the story, and I would've liked to see those connections explored even further to really drive home the moment when those relationships break. I also felt that Kasey was strongly coded as neurodivergent, what with the difficultly she has socializing and relating to other people and her hyperfixation on data as her main source of comfort. But it's never explicitly said in the book, despite being heavily implied, and I can't help but think that seeing that kind of representation would be really important to some readers. But like I said, it is very heavily coded, in my opinion, regardless.

With that said: there's intense mystery, there's action, there's romance, there's social commentary, and the last quarter or so of the book will make you question everything you thought you knew about the story twenty times over without giving you so much as a second to breathe. Trust me when I say it's a reading experience I won't soon forget.

This is a fascinating, twisty feat of a novel that does not remotely end where I thought it would, particularly given the vibe of the cover. I love that this is a firmly sci-fi/cli-fi near-apocalyptic novel with an assertedly naturalistic/low-fi cover, and the dissonance that created for me, as a reader, very much suited the novel itself. The way the novel splits its time and chapters between the two sisters' experiences and points of view (one first-person, one limited-third) was a bit difficult to get into for the first couple of chapters, but after that it was actually a great plot propulsion device to keep pivoting between the two, as every ending was a form of a cliffhanger. Thematically, the way this novel dealt with technology, family, neurodivergence/neurodiversity, love, and justice/punishment were fascinating in ways that were deeper than some YA novels choose to tread. I loved it.

Huh. I honestly don't know what I think of this book. It was very well-written and crafted, but not really a genre I like.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher I was able to read this book in exchange for an honest review.
***
The Ones We’re Meant to Find by Joan He is a YA sci-fi stand alone novel that is twisty and and confusing until about half way through where things finally start to click. This story is set in a future where the climate is awful and steadily getting worse.
The story follows two sister who are trying to find each other, the chapters alternating between them. Cee is on an abandoned island without much for memories other than she has a sister and she has to get back to her, but she’s not sure where her sister is or how to get to her. She has been on this island for at least 3 years. Crossing the ocean so far hasn’t worked very well for her.
Kasey, Kay, is the younger sister. Incredibly intelligent but lacking in people skills Kasey wants to know where her sister disappeared to and why. She knows her sister was going to the lower stratum to get closer to the ocean but she doesn’t know why her sister got into that boat and didn’t come back 3 months ago and she is steadily losing hope. The more she looks into it the more she finds out about her sister and the more we find out about Kasey because Kasey has a pretty big secret of her own.
***
This book was not at all what I expected I was going to get from the summary. Not at all, but then I hadn’t expected everything I got in the author’s first book either, Descendant of the Crane, and that book was also really, really good.
I found myself so confused for the first half of this book, with absolutely no clue what was going on until about the midway point when a chapter from Kasey’s POV finally made things click for me and I started to reframe everything I’d already read to understand what was going on. It’ll be like that, just keep going. It’s worth it.
Joan He writes an incredibly amazing story about 2 sisters reaching out for one another in their own way and the way they come together will blow your mind.

Friends, let it be said that Joan He is a master wordsmith. Her words resonated within me, swept me into the world straight away and kept me hooked until the very end. This is a critically important and innovative story addressing a very potential future if the climate crisis continues without intervention, and makes me want to spend some extra time outside because I take it for granted.

"The dominos had been set centuries ago. One quake, and they all fell."

The Ones We're Meant to Find is science fiction, and I'd classify it more on the hard sci-fi realm in that the technology of this near-ish future world plays a big role in the plot and it isn't explained all at once. It's a story of technological innovation out of necessity, but also delves into the psyche of human nature to explore why society reaching this point is basically inevitable. The author doles out information about the world slowly so the reader is never buried in an infodump, but also provides context clues about everything so the reader can piece everything almost completely together before it's confirmed in text. Some readers may struggle with not understanding the technology or status of the world, especially if they don't read a lot of science fiction, but trust that it will be explained and that at its heart this is a book about the bond between two sisters.

"Obviously, my sister isn't here. But the Kay-of-my-mind is right: I am forgetting. When I dream of her, it's in vibrant color, unlike the gradients of gray of my monochrome days. But everything is hazy when I wake. The details merge. The colors fade."

There are two distinct voices in the dual narratives, and let me tell you that Cee's POV will pull at every single heartstring that you have. Cee and Kay are so different and their chapters' tones reflect that. I adore Kay's pragmatism and honestly want to protect her from feeling 'defective' or 'wrong.' A common thread between the perspectives is loneliness: Cee all alone on an island trying to find her way back to Kay, and Kacey disconnected from the people around her. The loneliness is almost a character in its own right, an amorphous thing lingering just out of view of our main characters. Also, it needs to be said that I love Hubert.

"Alone is an island. It's an uncrossable sea, being too far from another world, whereas lonely is being too close, in the same house yet separated by walls because we choose to be, and when I fall asleep, the pain of loneliness follows me."

The writing is simply beautiful and the world is so interesting, fully realized, and honestly hauntingly prescient. I adore the world created: I think it's such an imaginative and logical human explanation to the climate crisis. I don't know about you, but I'd much rather recycle and give up my car so I don't have to live in like 50sqf in a tower in the sky and have to do 33% of life through VR. One of the most compelling things though is how people held onto their selfishness by bring so resistant to small personal sacrifices. It reignites my desire to do what I can for the environment; even if it's but a drop in an ocean, it's better than nothing.

"None of us live without consequences. Our personal preferences are not truly personal. One person's needs will deny another's. Our privileges can harm ourselves and others."

Unfortunately, there's something about the dual perspectives and the way the information about what happened with Cee & the worldbuilding is parsed out that didn't quite work for me, and I can't put my finger on it. There's a lot of moving parts to follow, and the author intricately plotted everything incredibly well, but my need to pick apart everything as I go and understand it definitely played a role here. That being said, I loved the sense of accomplishment I felt time and again when my guess was confirmed! But I did find the pacing of the book to be a little slow at times; the book really picks up running full-speed at 60% and everything slides into place then.

"The problem with oceans? They always seem smaller from the shore."

If you are a reader who likes wrapped up endings, I recommend you adjust your expectations now so you aren't blindsided by the book's open ending. The main reason that this is a 4-star read for me instead of 5-stars is my overall enjoyment of the book was brought down a little bit by the ending because... it kind of feels like it's missing an ending altogether. Where the slower pacing and reveal about halfway into the book felt satisfying to read, for me the ending is far too open to interpretation for my liking but that's a personal preference thing.

"As long as you exist, your hope will, too."

All in all, this is a poignant and heartbreakingly beautiful book that will tug on your heart. It's ultimately a story about sisterly love, but it's also about human nature and forces the reader to acknowledge the climate crisis and how important it is for each person individually to give up a little freedom for the good of everyone else. While the ending left questions about our characters unanswered, The Ones We're Meant to Find is a book I adore and recommend to fans of sci-fi and speculative fiction. (It's funny because this is similar to how I felt about Wilder Girls, only in this book I'm wanting for the character closure instead of worldbuilding closure.) It's a book that left me a little emotionally devastated, but still full of so much hope and a story I will cherish.

Content Warnings: climate crisis and apocalyptic themes, death, depictions of grief, loss of a parent, physical violence, suicidal thoughts, suicide, terminal illness

eARC provided by the publisher via Netgalley for my honest review. This has not affected my opinions of the book nor the content of my review. Quotations are from an unfinished proof and are subject to change upon final publication.

I absolutely love this book as my 2 am Goodreads rave suggests. The Black Mirror element is shocking ad twists the whole book on its head, and I'm obsessed. It's a challenging read that discusses love, loss, and the sacrifices humanity makes for the greater good of the planet. I love how in-depth the world-building is, and experiencing the lives of the two sisters on their simultaneous quests was both fun and nerve-wrecking.

This book was very interesting. I loved how it related to the environment and how us as humans affect it. I also enjoyed the character of Cee very much. I really loved hearing her side of the story. Unfortunately, I found the book to be a bit confusing.

This book is epic. The story is one of two sisters desperately seeking answers. Desperately trying to find each other. It's told in dual POV--one of Kasey, the reluctant socialite, and Cee--the lost sister desperate to get back to Kay. The worldbuilding is fantastic. It's so rich and developed, it feels like you're actually living in this dystopian world where nature has turned against humans. Kasey's chapters have the most "glitter" in terms of futuristic worldbuilding. At times, it was a lot to follow, but I greatly enjoy her chapters. I was most drawn to Cee, who's living on an abandoned island. There's something about her desperation that calls to me. I couldn't get enough.
This is a story about love, loss, secrets, and climate change. It's one of the few books I literally couldn't predict what would happen next. The prose is stunning and so emotional. This book is also haunting, the type you can't stop thinking about and know you will keep coming back to years after it's over.

Once again I was emotionally devastated at the hands of fiction. Joan He has the exquisite gift for storytelling not just to the reader but to our emotions as well. I'm not entirely sure how to review this book other than to say the Cee and Kasey are two sisters separated by to much more than distance. A scifi separation story that keeps the reader guessing and anxious while tugging at the heart strings all the while. Joan He has done it again with another amazing story for young readers.

Wow what a fantastic novel! Great storyline, with really great elements of real world issues woven in to create the perfect balance between fiction and not. I am truly surprised at the direction this book took, something that hasn't happened to me in a long time reading a book. The way Joan He writes, the twists that her story took, the perfect merge between two seemingly separate story lines... it was a testament to her tremendous skill as a writer.

The book follows Cee who has been on an abandoned island for three years, and Kasey the sister who was left behind. I enjoyed getting to know each character and journeying through their lives with them as they uncovered truths and discovered themselves. The plot itself is widely based on the world "ending" in a way due to the environmental strain that humans placed on the Earth for so long. The author's world of cities in the sky with holograms and stasis pods was masterfully created. The book didn't end the way I expected or thought I wanted, and yet it fit the story perfectly.

Overall, I recommend everyone give this book a try regardless of age or favorite genre. I think it has something for everyone - lovers of mystery, romance, thriller, fiction, fantasy, etc. Go in with an open mind... don't try to guess where it's going because you'll be wrong every time lol. Just read and enjoy.

Well, it's official. I will be throwing THE ONES WE'RE MEANT TO FIND by Joan He at everyone I know. Those who love science fiction (YA and adult), cli-fi, quiet books, mysterious worlds, sweet romance as B-plot, STEM characters, ingenious tech, and imaginative twists: listen up. The One's We're Meant to Find is a beautifully written, tightly woven story of two sisters, one who is trapped on an island with barely any memory of who she is, and the other who is a STEM-prodigy living in an eco-city. They are searching for each other, but no one can prepare them for what they find.

Its Black Mirror chills meets a post climate apocalyptic world where humanity hangs in the balance. Smart and soul-stirring, sometimes haunting, this book gave me all the feels.

Thanks to the publisher for granting me the eARC.

I had a difficult time getting into this book. I tried multiple times to read it, thinking that perhaps it was just my mood for that particular time. But I just couldn't muster enough interest to read on. I still do think this is worth having in our YA collection as I find the premise intriguing, and I like that the main characters are Asian and sisters. I will give this another go in the future.

This was one of my most anticipated reads this year, so I was ecstatic to receive an eARC from a giveaway. I fully endorse the logline “We Were Liars meets Black Mirror, with a dash of Studio Ghibli.” The Ones We’re Meant to Find was mysterious, dystopian, and, most importantly to me, beautifully written.

This is why I love love love books that center around sibling dynamics. He approached the complexity of the relationship between sisters Celia and Kasey with a lyrical vulnerability. The sisters’ personalities are vastly different, with Celia being more emotional and Kasey being more logical, and the narration of their respective chapters bestows each of them with a unique voice. In other reviews, I’ve noticed that people said they had a harder time investing themselves in Kasey in comparison to Celia, but I didn’t experience this problem. Although I do think that Celia’s storyline evoked more visceral reactions from me, I enjoyed how I was able to follow all of Kasey’s reasoning so clearly.

“Every other sleep, I dream of swimming to the horizon and finding my sister at the edge of the world.”

There was a romantic subplot, but it felt a bit swallowed by the strength of Kasey and Celia’s longing to find one another again. Take that with a grain of salt, though, because going into this story, I was already less interested in potential romance than other readers tend to be. I could honestly ramble about Kasey and Celia’s relationship for so long, that’s how well He created it. Even when the eco-cities literally started to fall, the catastrophe only further emphasized Kasey and Celia’s development. However, this doesn’t mean that the sci-fi elements felt lackluster—they just also served as ways to frame the main character’s emotions and motivations. To match the cli-fi setting, He also spent a lot of time describing natural environments, like the sea that’s featured prominently on the cover, and this helped balance the scientific and technological elements.

“Her mistake wasn’t trusting the tech. It was trusting the humans the tech served.”

I’m also obligated to admit that I didn’t predict the major twist at all. I did recognize many of the clues scattered throughout the first half or so of the novel (my many Kindle highlights can attest to that), but I didn’t put the pieces together until the characters did. And let me tell you...that reveal was huge! It completely reoriented the story, especially its chronology. Something subtle I also appreciated was how seamlessly each chapter merged. Although the chapters alternated between Celia and Kasey’s perspectives, the situation/dialogue at the end of one chapter would often mirror the situation/dialogue at the start of the next, creating fluidity between them.

I would have given the middle third or so five stars. The first third was a bit slow, and then the last third felt a bit too fast for my brain to keep up. For me, I think most of this difficulty stemmed from the sudden change in chronology. It’s necessary, but it’s also disorienting, and I wished some of those scenes had been extended.

In conclusion, The Ones We’re Meant to Find was gorgeous and thought-provoking, and I’ll happily devour whatever Joan He writes next.

To be honest, I was super thrown off by the cover! I was fully expecting a lyrical contemporary but this was much more of a sci-fi/pre-apocalyptic story.
I loved the author's handling of the two main characters. She showed how very different the girls are and fully celebrated them in a way I've rarely seen done. And though there is a romance element, the main drive of love is between the sisters, which was refreshing.
The only thing I can say negative is that between the timelines and hidden info, I found it to be very hard to follow for a good portion of the book. But the ending was satisfying.

"Asteroid fallout, carbon emissions, and radioaxon releases all had something in common: Time was the best medicine. Climate might change. oceans might rise. Species might mutate, or vanish. But given enough time, nature would do what nature does best: break down the elements that didn't belong."

Yeah- if that quote above didn't do it for you then.. I don't know what because it certain obliterated my mind and thought process, and it is just one example of many via Joan's thought provoking prose. If I'm being honest, I have not read that many activist books for the environment besides Winterkeep, which is a fantasy book in another world, but The Ones We're Meant to Find just sucker punched me into another stratosphere. I couldn't put it down because the characters were so dynamic and visceral. I couldn't think about anything besides climate change and dystopia futures where our earth tries to kill us more than humanity already does... and just WOW. Wow was the only word to come to mind after I finished. It may sound cliché or boring, but it's truly what I was left feeling/ thinking.

"We're nothing as timeless as stars in orbit. More like two grains of sand before the tide rushes in. Here, then not. Human."

For starters, Cee and Kasey are two very different characters- not only through their differing points of view (one in first and the other in third)- but also through their goals, hopes, and grief. Cee has been stuck on an island for three years, desperately trying to find her way home to her sister Kay. While Kasey on the other hand, griefs for her dead sister Celia and struggles with the impending doom of humanity due to environmental destruction. I don't really want to say anything more than this because part of the beauty/ intrigue of this novel is going in blind. You'll enjoy it 110% more if you know next to nothing. The story unfolds in such a powerful way that I never would want anyone to experience it differently.

"None of us live without consequence. Our personal preferences are not truly personal. One person's needs will deny another's. Our privileges can harm ourselves and others."

The reason this is not a full five star rating comes down to the fact that Kasey did not interest me as much until about halfway into the novel, and this isn't me saying she's boring by any means, but Cee was not enthralling that I had a hard time switching back to Kasey. After finishing the book, I think I would enjoy Kasey's POV to a deeper level than my initial read through because I know everything now. Kasey is very interesting once all these pieces come together. Maybe when I reread my rating will change, but for now I'm going to leave it.

"The sea was a trillion strands of hair, infinitely tangled on the surface and infinitely dense beneath. It distorted time: Minutes passed like hours and hours passed like minutes out there. It distorted space, made the horizon seem within reach. And it was the perfect place for hiding secrets."

Overall, this is definitely going on my Top Reads of 2021 list. This is the sort of dystopia, sci-fi I've been searching for, and I'm so thankful to Joan for writing it. It did more than engross me and that's all I ever ask from a writer. Joan He will always be an auto-buy author for me, so I urge you all to step into this futuristic world of humanity. Journey into this terrifying world and let me know what you think once on the other side. Thank you to Macmillan for the eARC. All thoughts and opinions are my own; quotes may be subject to change slightly in the final draft, but these are them according to the eARC from NetGalley.

TW: environmental destruction/ natural disasters, major grief, suicide, drowning, isolation, gas lighting, terminal illness, death of a parent (off-screen), violence, and murder (off-screen). I may have missed a few other TW's, but these are the one's that stuck out to me upon reflection. I try to typically write triggers as I read, but I was so enraptured by the book that I forgot sometimes to do so.

This book absolutely destroyed me in the best possible way. This entire story is beautiful, from the breathtaking cover to the deep, winding story between its pages. The twists and turns took me on a journey, and I continue to be blown away by Joan He's work. I had high expectations after her amazing debut, and she completely went above and beyond!

This dystopian thriller with a focus on ecosystem and science follows two sisters: Cee, who has been trapped on an island for three years with no memories except the need to find her sister, and Kasey, a girl living in an eco-city floating above earth as a refuge against climate change. The dual POV switches between the sisters, with Cee's being told in first person and Kasey's being told in third person. This was a really interesting decision that was pulled off very well and really helped the two POVs be completely distinct. It also lent itself incredibly well to the characterization of the two girls. It's easy for readers to become attached to the first-person, charismatic POV of Cee, who follows a familiar dystopian storyline of a main character who does everything they can for their younger sibling, but in this book, Kasey is the one who controls the story. I loved seeing how tropes were turned on their head and again, the twists and turns?! None of the comp titles to this book lie!

I loved how different the two sisters were, and the side characters surrounding them were so real. You will never see side characters who are only there to further the main character's journey from He. In fact, you're far more likely to have side characters working against them! I loved how the sisters tangled with the boys in their lives as well, and though this story certainly does not have a completely happy ending, it felt so real. This truly was the book I've been waiting for, even though it broke my heart into an unmanageable number of pieces. Will I ever recover? Most likely not, but that's the beauty of Joan He's writing.

Speaking of, I am again stunned by Joan He's poetic prose. There are definitely passages I had to re-read to understand, but there are infinitely more that I re-read because the words were just so beautiful. Each phrase seems to be chosen so carefully to immerses you into the world even more. This book was crafted so perfectly and I am completely in love with it. I can't recommend it enough. This has joined her first book as one of my favorite books of all time and I WILL be yelling at people to read it before, during, and long after release day!!

The One’s We’re Meant to Find by Joan He was a beautiful read that really got us hooked and highlighted the importance of looking after our planet. This book is full of love, friendship, betrayal, sadness, and plot twists! We gave this book 4 stars because we found the beginning of the book a bit slow and a little bit confusing however once you get past the beginning it really picks up. We pride ourselves on finding Easter eggs in books but we managed to miss all of them and were so shocked by the plot twists but absolutely loved them. The main characters were worlds apart in personalities but both lovable in their own way. Once we hit the middle of the book we were both obsessed with this read and couldn’t put it down. We loved the ending of the book it got us all emotional and absolutely gob smacked. We would genuinely highly recommend this book to everyone and are extremely grateful that you allowed us an arc of this beautiful book.

I had two of these to give feedback on! Not sure why but it was absolutely fantastic and Joan He really captivated me from the start.

Following two sisters seemingly worlds apart in a future full of natural disasters and politics as well as an eco-city, our two main characters are trying to find each other: Cee, having woken up on an abandoned island can only remember that she has a sister named Kasey and Kasey, having lost Kasey at sea, is trying to figure out what happened to her sister. The sisters are so different yet so alike: they fit together like puzzle pieces, one being your regular extrovert, life of the party character and the other being a more reserved, not being able to really be human, not as human as everyone else is. Exploring sisterhood, relationships, navigating politics and the consequences of poisoning the Earth, this book is exceptionally well written.
I really enjoyed it and will definitely be re-reading it in the future.
Thank you to the publisher for sending me an e-ARC of the book