*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.