Saltcrop - Yume Kitasei - ★★★.½

AUTHOR: Yume Kitasei

NARRATOR: Eunice Wong

GENRE: Science Fiction.

PUBLICATION DATE: September 30, 2025

RATING: 3.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: A near-future literary eco-thriller about two sisters who go on an epic sea journey to search for their missing third sister. Character-oriented, decent pacing. Interesting plotline and characters, great worldbuilding. Three sections, with the impact of each going steadily downwards. A good option that sadly misses out on the chance to be great.

Plot Preview:

In a world ravaged by climate change and food scarcity, twenty-two-year-old Skipper, a skilled sailor, makes a meagre living by reselling plastic debris she finds in the ocean. Though the youngest of three sisters, Skipper lives alone with her grandmother, who isn't that kind to her. Then Skipper learns that her eldest sister Nora is missing. Nora had left home a decade ago to work with an organisation focussing on a solution to the global food crisis. Nora has been Skipper’s idol for a long time, so Skipper knows she has to go looking for her, even if she cannot afford the journey. Their middle sister Carmen, though not too happy with Skipper’s decision, decides to join her on her quest, even though she is meant to start a new job soon.

What lies ahead for the two sisters? Will their journey help them find Nora? Will they be able to put aside their differences for the sake of the larger goal?

The story comes to us in three (unequal) sections, one each from the three sisters’ points of view written in third person.

Bookish Yays:

🌱 Skipper. The youngest siblings often get the best role in fiction, and this book is no exception. I liked Skipper’s personality best.

🌱 Carmen. Tougher to like at times, but her layered personality works in favour of the plot.

🌱 The sisterly bond, especially between Skipper and Carmen. The book shows all the ups and downs of sibling relationships, and even highlights how expectations and behavioural patterns vary across eldest, middle, and youngest siblings.

🌱 The genuineness of their quest. I like how both the sisters aren’t shown as perfect and their quest involves several mistakes along the way. The ‘chosen one’ narrative is tiresome, so it is refreshing that this novel doesn’t walk down that path.

🌱 The worldbuilding – stark, bleak, realistic. Though set in an unknown near-future world ravaged by climate change and food crises, the story still feels real and present-day. Almost as if we are just a decade or so away from reaching this point. It’s scary!

🌱 The portrayal of mega corporations and their endless, self-serving greed even at the cost of their employees and the world in general – definitely true to life. The key organisation in the book seems to be a darker version of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway – a great twisty addition. (Do note that the story never makes a reference to any actual location or company. And that the Vault in real life is doing an admirable job.)

🌱 The journey that we see in the first section coming from Skipper’s perspective. I love how it had an accurate portrayal of a water-based journey via a small boat.

Bookish Okays:

🛶 The story is divided in three sections, one from each sister’s third-person perspective and in a different setting. The length of each section isn't the same. Skipper’s section is the strongest and I enjoyed most of it. Carmen’s POV is also decent. But it takes time to adjust from one POV and setting to the next.

🛶 The story mainly focusses on the siblings, but there are several other characters and relationships in the book. These never get extended attention due to the close third-person POV, but we still learn enough about most of those characters. The male characters are mostly jerks, with just a couple of prominent exceptions. Jackson’s character was the most annoying; I would have happily chucked him out of the plot.

🛶 The book takes a literary approach towards storytelling, which ensures that the character-driven writing is somewhat slowpaced. It didn’t make much difference during Skipper’s section as the journey’s tedium came across well on page. But the dip in pacing is felt strongly in the remaining two sections.

🛶 Some decisions taken by the sisters don’t make realistic sense. Perhaps we ought to keep their respective ages and closeted living circumstances in mind. Some suspension of disbelief is still required.

Bookish Nays:

🍂 The weakest by far is the third section coming from Nora’s perspective. Most of it is an infodump, and it contains a couple of reveals that were out of the blue and didn’t add any value to the story. There are also too many convenient coincidences in this section. Section Three brought my overall rating down.

Bookish Doubt:

🤔 What the heck is the significance of that title?

🎧 The Audiobook Experience:

The audiobook, clocking at 11 hrs 35 min, is narrated by Eunice Wong (who is most known for her voice performance as Vera Wong.) She is a wonderful narrator and can handle voices and emotions well. However, given that the books has three sections from three separate characters, I’d have preferred the audio version to have three narrators; one per sister. Even though the narrative is in third person, hearing the same voice throughout doesn’t help, even if the narrator is brilliant.

Overall, while the final section didn’t go that well for me, I still liked the rest of the story. The first section was especially impressive. The storytelling is more focussed on the characters, but there’s enough of action and adventure to satisfy plot-loving readers.

This is my first book by this author, and it is quite a nice one to begin with. Her earlier two novels were set in outer space, so this is quite a change in direction. I’d like to give her books at least one more try.

Recommended to those looking for a more literary kind of character-driven adventure set in the near future.

3.5 stars. (Section I: a solid 4 stars; Section II: 3.5 stars; Section III: 2.5 stars. But as the length of each isn't the same, I cannot average these ratings. Hence going by the overall feel and rounding up wherever applicable.)

My thanks to Macmillan Audio for providing the ALC of “Saltcrop” via NetGalley. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the audiobook.