The Epic Story of Every Living Thing / Deb Caletti / Book Review

Harper Proulx doesn't know who she is, not really. With an anonymous sperm donor for a father, she's always felt she was missing some important half of herself, some information she needs to know to make herself whole. Harper loves her mother, loves her boyfriend, loves her life. But that doesn't answer all the questions she has about herself.

But then a chance Instagram encounter leads Harper to one half-sibling, and this half-sibling leads her to many, many more. Together, they hunt down the pieces left behind. They find their father, a professional deep sea diver named Beau Zane living in Hawai'i. 

Fresh off a painful breakup and looking to escape home for a bit, Harper agrees to travel to Hawai'i with her newfound siblings. She wants to meet the man who's responsible for half of her (at least genetically). But Beau Zane, a man obsessed with an old ship wreckage, only brings up more questions once Harper meets him. Who is he, really? And who is she?

Thoughts

This book is perhaps the best straight-up contemporary book I've read so far this year. The writing is decent, easy to follow. The setting is uniquely tropical, and the story is different--it stands out. Overall, this is a solid contemporary read. 

Pros

• Slice of Terrible Life: The reality unfolding behind this book is cold and harsh, but for Harper, it is just life. She's struggling to stay afloat in the aftermath of 2020, juggling masking uncertainty, COVID fear, and what it means to be vaccinated as new variants make their way onto the scene. The sense of lost opportunity and drifting friends after worldwide catastrophe also plays a part--and a blasé sort of active-shooter drill (unfortunately too familiar to many) makes its way into these pages as well.

• Doom Scrolling: Harper is struggling, clashing with her mom, wrestling with newfound family, trying to make sense of her "father's" roll when he was, quite literally, just a sperm donor. Social media doesn't help. The endless scrolling, filling her life with the background noise of airbrushed perfection and fatalistic shouting doesn't help. This aspect of modern life was capture so, so well in the midst of a story, seemingly, about something else. 

• Island Paradise: There's something so perfectly escapist about a group of newly-discovered siblings jetting away to a tropical island after a year of lockdown. Learning to deep-sea dive, encountering tropical wildlife, and tanning poolside with a good pup is just a bonus. Harper's new family might be family by blood, but they're also connected in more ways than that, bonding in a way that's so refreshing to read. 

Cons

• You: I'm not going to lie. The opening here was rough for me, grammatically. Most won't agree with me on this point, but wonky grammar still makes my mind spin. The casual slipping into second person, seemingly without great intention, in the opening pages was quite jarring. I found it hard to settle into the narrative for this reason. Luckily, this usage petered out as the story unfolded into itself. 

• Food Focus: Some readers beware--Harper's mother (and her social media feed) are very food-conscious. Those who might struggle to read about "healthy" versus "unhealthy" food, about bakery and sweet treat avoidance, about ideal fitness level... You should be cautious here. Harper's narrative drifts far, far away from this line of thought, but it is particularly present at the start. 

• Gen Z Clickbait: As accurate as Harper's doom scrolling might be, I found it very hard to believe that she was paying so much attention to clickbait titles like "The 2 Foods You Must Avoid to..." Certainly, this garbage type of clickbait makes up a fair bit of Internet noise, but Harper seems to engage with this content far more than anyone--and I do mean anyone--from Gen-Z is likely to. There are all kinds of pressures being thrown at Gen Z from Internet culture, but this sort of clickbaity stuff is much more effective at sucking in older generations, not the generation who live and breathe Internet. Harper's engagement here just didn't feel realistic. 

Rating

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

8/10

Fans of Emma Lord's You Have a Match will like this story of newly-discovered family. Those who enjoyed Robin Benway's Far From the Tree will like this new group of siblings trying to figure things out together. 

Details

Publisher: Labyrinth Road
Date: September 13, 2022
Series: N/A

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Note: I was provided with an ARC by the publisher through Netgalley and Edelweiss+ in exchange for an honest review. All opinions here are my own.