A review by kellysavagebooks
The Sea Knows My Name by Laura Brooke Robson

emotional reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

Thea wanted to be a scientist, but when her father dies, her mother Clementine takes her to the sea and a life of piracy.

I would read Robson’s shopping list at this point, I love her writing so much. There’s an ache and a bittersweetness I feel in my bones. Her worlds are gray and bright, whether it’s all floods and aerial dancers (Girls at the Edge) or whales and bees (this book). Her characters are so alive, their relationships so complicated and uncomfortable and sweet. I think what I love most about her characters is that they’re so shaped by what happens to them. Thea is who she is because of her father and the loss of him, her love of the ocean, her relationship with her mother, her fondness for science, her SA survival, the myths she grew up with, the violence she has witnessed, the school she went to, etc. etc. and it all blends together and coalesces into this person who is so real and so herself that I’m not convinced Robson didn’t travel interdimensionally to meet her.

TSKMN is about mothers and daughters, it’s about whales, it’s about sexual assault, it’s about wanting so badly to be tender while fear makes you hard, it’s about mythology, and it’s about girlhood. It’s technically fantasy, because it’s second-world, but there’s no magic. In short, I cannot recommend this (or Girls) enough.
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