Awake in the Floating City: Review
Awake in the Floating City by Susanna Kwan features a female protagonist (Bo) who is living in a high rise in the partially submerged city of San Francisco. While her family has long evacuated, she has stayed behind, mixing art and the occasional caretaking job for the elderly who, thanks to advances in medical science, now live to 140 and beyond. Bo takes on an elderly woman as a client and forms a bond, in part based on her ward filling a gap in Bo's life left by her own mother, who went missing when the flooding and storms began. She wants to create an art piece to honor her elderly ward's life, and the latter part of the book focuses on that all-consuming goal.
This novel is extremely moving and expertly mixes dystopian world-building with a powerful story that is only accentuated by the near-future science fiction elements. A fascinating contrast plays out between the power of new technology that extends the human lifespan, with the inability of humanity to control climate change that is swamping coastal cities and forcing mass migration. Yet this is all the backdrop to the deep, caring relationship that forms between Bo and her elderly client. Bo is usually brought in as her wards are becoming too old to live fully alone, so the conclusion is especially poignant as her final patient, with whom she bonds strongly, becomes increasingly frail.
Rating:
- Recommend? Yes, for adults
- Buy as a gift? Perhaps, though the subject matter could be stressful to those with elderly relatives
Last modified on 1 Feb 2026 by AO
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