Sea Change is literary fiction about Ro, the thirty year old daughter of Korean immigrants. A history of loss has shaped her into a rather dysfunctional adult. Her marine biologist father disappeared on a research trip while she was a teen, she and her BFF are at odds, and her boyfriend left her (and the planet) on a mission to colonize Mars. Now Dolores, the giant Pacific octopus at the aquarium where she is employed, and one of her last remaining links to her father, is being sold. Ro deals with all of her loneliness and fears that anything good is only going to be taken from her by neglecting everything in her life except for her quest to stop feeling anything at all (with the help of a drink or two, or ten).

This is the story of Ro discovering that if she wants to escape the rut she is stuck in, she’ll need to learn to appreciate the things she does have without constantly tiptoeing around the possibility of losing them. I may have teared up during a scene about saying goodbye to the octopus…