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Awake in the Floating City: A Novel Audiobook
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WINNER OF THE ASIAN AMERICAN AWARD FOR LITERATURE IN ADULT FICTION • LONGLISTED FOR THE CENTER FOR FICTION FIRST NOVEL PRIZE
An utterly transporting debut novel about the unexpected relationship between an artist and the 130-year-old woman she cares for—two of the last people living in a flooded San Francisco of the future, the home neither is ready to leave.
A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK FROM PEOPLE MAGAZINE
"An astonishing work of art...This is the kind of book that changes you, that leaves you seeing more vividly, and living more fully, in its wake." —Rachel Khong, author of Real Americans
Bo knows she should go. Years of rain have drowned the city and almost everyone else has fled. Her mother was carried away in a storm surge and ever since, Bo has been alone. She is stalled: an artist unable to make art, a daughter unable to give up the hope that her mother may still be alive. Half-heartedly, she allows her cousin to plan for her escape—but as the departure day approaches, she finds a note slipped under her door from Mia, an elderly woman who lives in her building and wants to hire Bo to be her caregiver. Suddenly, Bo has a reason to stay.
Mia can be prickly, and yet still she and Bo forge a connection deeper than any Bo has had with a client. Mia shares stories of her life that pull Bo back toward art, toward the practice she thought she’d abandoned. Listening to Mia, allowing her memories to become entangled with Bo’s own, she’s struck by how much history will be lost as the city gives way to water. Then Mia’s health turns, and Bo determines to honor their disappearing world and this woman who’s brought her back to it, a project that teaches her the lessons that matter most: how to care, how to be present, how to commemorate a life and a place, soon to be lost forever.
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"“Kwan nimbly constructs a dystopic San Francisco populated by the leftover few. Impermanence is delicately threaded throughout--disappearing landscapes, buildings, landmarks, records, archives. But Kwan also deftly intertwines centuries of Asian-American history—the Chinese Exclusion Act, Angel Island, Executive Order 9066, ethnic studies, widespread anti-Asian hate—tracking the challenges of being repeatedly rejected, exoticized, misrepresented, othered…An atmospheric study of two untethered souls who find companionship and support in a not-too-distant San Francisco that's sinking into the rising waters."
— Shelf Awareness
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Awake in the Floating City is an astonishing work of art, rich with attention, patience, and love: the rare elegy that hums with hope, and makes the strongest case I’ve ever read for remembering the people and places that matter to us. Kwan’s prose pulses with uncommon attention to the natural world, attuned to both its beauty and devastation. This is the kind of book that changes you, that leaves you seeing more vividly, and living more fully, in its wake.
— Rachel Khong, author of Real Americans -
What book is like this? What post-apocalyptic vision dares be so gorgeous, lush, struck with humor and light, so warm and caring and care-taking? Luminous, wise, Susanna Kwan's story of a flooded future San Francisco expands the known world, making room within its unbearable devastation for beauty, compassion, and love. This book is a labor undertaken by an imagination able to mourn and celebrate in the same breath. An argument runs through it, like a bright live wire, that to attend to loss—to hold the dying world's hand and say, ‘I'm here
— is a way to be fully alive. And so it is an argument for life. -
A Most Anticipated Book of 2025 from People Magazine
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A Most Anticipated Book of the Year from People, San Francisco Chronicle, and HeatMap
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[A] tender, speculative novel that imagines [Kwan's] home city flooded and largely abandoned—and how two of its last remaining residents find unlikely connection in disaster.
— San Francisco Chronicle -
A Most Anticipated Book of the Year from People, San Francisco Chronicle, Electric Literature, and HeatMap
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A Most Anticipated Book of the Year from People, San Francisco Chronicle, Electric Literature, Axios San Francisco, and HeatMap
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“A lyrical tale…In spare and sometimes enigmatic prose, Kwan offers weighty insights into the human condition…Readers of climate fiction such as Téa Obreht’s The Morningside will find much to enjoy.
— Publishers Weekly -
A Best New Release of May from AltaA Most Anticipated Book of the Year from People, San Francisco Chronicle, Electric Literature, Axios San Francisco, 7x7, and HeatMap
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Attentive to the value of connection, Kwan’s debut novel imagines an altered version of her native city, asking a poignant question: How can you leave after everything’s gone?
— Alta -
Ravishing.
— SF Gate -
“Marvelously graceful…While this gem sits firmly between the mushrooming genre of climate fiction and the more subdued melancholia of Station Eleven or The Dog Stars, it’s very much its own creature, meditating with fresh eyes on the resilience of memory and the inevitability of time.
— Kirkus, starred review -
"With a gentle poeticism, Awake in the Floating City explores the gifts and trials of an intergenerational friendship while also reminding us of the multitude of histories embedded in the land around us. For anyone whose past is populated with long-gone landmarks in altered landscapes, Awake in the Floating City will strike a resonant chord.
— BookPage“A lyrical tale…In spare and sometimes enigmatic prose, Kwan offers weighty insights into the human condition…Readers of climate fiction such as Téa Obreht’s The Morningside will find much to enjoy. -
“Bo and Mia's stories ask readers to see how grief, loss, and change affect people's decisions while also challenging them to look at climate change from a very personal perspective. Readers of Eric Barnes' Above the Either and Lily Brooks-Dalton's The Light Pirate will relish this thought-provoking debut.
— Booklist
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Adams Media provides helpful, funny, and inspiring books on a wide variety of topics so that, no matter who you are, we’ve got you covered. Our editors are just like you—living, loving, and learning every day. Our personal experiences and expertise in our given book categories allow us to bring you some of the best content on the market—from parenting to relationships, to the paranormal, cooking, and humor—we cover what you care about.