On Such a Full Sea: Futuristic, Survival, Fishy

Hi! Welcome back to my blog where I will be reviewing books selected from the American Library Association’s weekly planner for July 2023-December 2024. This book is for the Week of October 9-14. Here is the fifth book being reviewed:On Such a Full Sea by Chang-rae Lee. 

***SPOILERS AHEAD***

This novel is set in a futuristic America and explores ideals such as greed and survival. The country is divided into three classes: the wealthy upper class who live in Charter villages, the middle class who work in labor colonies in formerly urban developments, and everyone else lives in the outside counties. These outside counties have no law or order, so it is a place based on survival. There is no government who presides over the counties. What assumptions do you make when hearing about a dystopian novel without a government?

These middle-tier are known as labor colonies. The novel focuses on developing the stories of the people who reside there and in the outside counties. The labor colonies are responsible for providing food to the Charters, especially fish. I found it interesting that fish is the main and luxury food group of this world.

Fan, the novel’s female protagonist, lives in B-Mor, one of the middle class centers. She works as a fish-tank diver and harvester and her boyfriend, Reg, disappears one day. Fan leaves her home in B-Mor, formerly known as Baltimore, and sets out on a mission to find the man she loves.  Other people began slowly disappearing, or dispatching. A few hours after leaving B-Mor’s borders, Fan was picked up by two counties people, Quig and Loreen, and driven up north. I would be terrified to leave the boundaries of a safe area and voyage into one without any government oversight. Fan is also very brave, or naive,  because she easily went with Quig and Loreen.

Reg’s aunt and uncle disappeared from B-Mor a couple of years ago and he too was inspired by the unknown of C-free, one of the outside county’s. Fan left in pursuit of the loss of her boyfriend, Reg, who is also the father of her child.

Quig houses about 40 different people and Sewey, Loreen’s son bonded with Fan. Quig used to live in the Charters before being thrown out for illegal animal drug sales. He was guilt by association, as his wife sold the drugs.

Fan was becomingg attached to 13-year-old Sewey and Eli, a friend of Sewey’s whose family Quig also hosts, as well as the B-Mor community. She didn’t spend too much time reflecting on her pregnancy.

Reg never ate fish and had top-tier genetics. He was picked up by the Charters who then conducted testing to correlate fish consumption and health. When the test results came back, the Charters stopped wanting to eat fish, the B-Mor fish tanks became over-grown, and the B-Mor residents were able, for the for time, to readily and cheaply consume fish. Even though this fish was toxic, the B-Mor residents were so shocked by their ability to afford fish that they ate it nearly every night.

Quig goes on a journey with Loreen and Fan. On his journey he explores other families who reside in the outer counties.

I would recommend this book to someone who is interested dystopian novels. This novel wasn’t my favorite as I felt the narrator was unreliable and vague, making Fan’s timeline and Reg’s timeline difficult to follow. On Such a Full Sea earns 2.5 out of 5 stars in my opinion. It pulled me in initially with Reg’s disappearance and Fan’s pursuit of him, but lost me the further the story went along and deeper into Fan’s travels in the outer counties.