EVERYTHING TO THE SEA BOOK LAUNCH!
young lovers whose fates are swept together by a tsunami.
About this Event
Join da Shop in celebrating local author Alicia Upano's debut novel, Everything to the Sea. Upano will be joined in conversation by Megan Kamalei Kakimoto, author ofEvery Drop is a Man's Nightmare, for a talk story exploring the themes of first love, devastating loss, and the irresistible pull of finding your way back to the person who changed everything.
After the talk story, enjoy a bookish reception with Everything to the Sea-themed activities, ʻono snacks, and a book signing. Books will be available for purchase at the event.
This event is free to the public but space is limited! Parking is available at the Kaimukī Municipal Lot.
More about the book:
Part riveting love story, part coming-of-age tale, Everything to the Sea is a breathtaking debut novel spanning years and shores after a sudden tsunami devastates the island of Hawaiʻi and cuts short a young couple’s budding romance—a deeply moving testament to the catastrophes love can endure.
This is how the story goes: Jane will fall in love. And then all of this will vanish.
Home for one final summer, Jane is working and saving cash for her senior year of college before she leaves her island town behind forever. At first, she doesn’t remember Kenji, but he quickly becomes someone she can’t forget: square jaw, a dimple in his cheek. A Hilo boy. To Kenji, she’s Janie, nose perpetually buried in her old high school sketchbooks. Jane tells herself it’s only a fling—one perfect, carefree summer, on her way to achieving her dream of becoming an architect and moving to the continent.
Then a tsunami sweeps their families out to sea, and their all-consuming affair breaks with the weight of grief, pulling them in opposite directions. Kenji remains in Hawaiʻi, bound by duty to rebuild their hometown. Jane, shattered by the loss, follows her best friend to California. For seven years, an ocean lies between them, until Jane and Kenji meet on another coast . . .
Heartbreaking and life-affirming, Upano’s debut novel tells the unforgettable story of two young people as they come of age, fall in love, forge new families, and try to find their way back together, again and again. Everything to the Sea is a moving portrait of our ability to overcome even the most devastating tragedies, when everything else is washed away.
About the author:
Alicia Upano was born and raised in Hawaiʻi. She is the recipient of the Poets & Writers Maureen Egen Writers Exchange Award Hawaiʻi, the James Jones First Novel Fellowship, and a Bread Loaf-Rona Jaffe Scholarship. Her short fiction has appeared in The Massachusetts Review, The Southern Review, The Best Peace Fiction: A Social Justice Anthology, and more. After living in Asia and both U.S. continental coasts, she now resides on O’ahu with her family. Everything to the Sea is her debut novel.
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
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