On such a full sea

I'm not usually a fan of dystopian fiction, but this one drew me in without ever having to explain how things came to be the way they were. (As a writer, I imagine that Lee wrote reams about what happened–climate change, pollution in China that caused so many migrants to move, more cancer causing pollutants everwhere, and so on–but then deciding that the reader didn't really need to know all that background to engage with the story.) Told in the first person plural from the point of view of the community from which young Fan has fled in search of her boyfriend, Reg, the diction and voice are fabulous. Fan is on a quest and we willingly follow her misadventures. The title of the book is taken from a speech by Brutus in Julius Caesar. (I read parts of this and listened to the whole audio book, narrated wonderfully by B.D. Wong.)