Set in the not too distant future, the southwestern region of the United States as we know it has become a wasteland. Taking place mostly in Arizona and Texas, the majority of fresh water sources have dried up leaving the inhabitants thirsty and desperate. Most of the big cities have fallen and turned into dust bowls.
The story is told by several characters with different viewpoints. There is journalist Lucy Monroe who is warned by law enforcement not to write about the murders in town, but after her best friend Jamie, a lawyer at the water department is tortured and killed, she writes a piece that makes her a target for the corrupt politicians and water brokers. The antagonists are Angel Valasquez, a hired gun. He is called a water knife, a person who threatens the citizens of a town in order to get the rights to their water supply. And Catherine Case, for whom he works, who's a narcissistic water czar using her pipelines to pump water away from cities and towns only to re-direct them to Las Vegas to support the arcology, a self-sustaining protected community structure she created. Along the way we also meet two young women who are polar opposites but soon become friends. Maria works as a house cleaner in a hotel and Sarah, a once vulnerable girl, is forced into becoming a prostitute. Together they come across a supply of water they try to sell for enough money to leave the horrible town they're stuck in.
I did not like this book at first, buy the voices of the well-developed characters urged me to read on. It's dark and depressing especially when the characters conjure memories of what life was like before the drought took hold. Bacigalupi's story-telling is overwhelming as he describes the horrors of daily living in the throes of a climate-changed world. The details and delivery of each chapter and the desperation that the characters express is heart breaking. The pace of the second half of the book really picked up becoming a fast-paced mystery thriller with several scenes that were difficult to get through and suggestive of the current US border crisis of today. Overall, I would recommend this book but would caution as it is graphic and distressing.
Read-alikes:
Warriors of the Altaii by Robert Jordan
I Will Send Rain by Rae Meadows
Gold Fame Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkins
Karen McHugh, Harborfields Public Library
The City Where We Once Lived by Eric Barnes
In the not too distant future, a city is divided into two contrasting communities - the South End, where life goes on with all of the amenities always had; and the North End, which has been ravaged by the effects of climate change and industrial pollution - an environment that resembles the dystopia portrayed in the Mad Max series. The people of the North End are living day-to-day, isolated, scraping together what they can from the remnants of their lost homes, neighborhoods, and way of life. The government has virtually abandoned the prospect of aiding the North End of the city, and even proposes shutting off the water and electricity in an effort to drive the remaining population out of the area. It is made clear that had the government heeded the warnings of the people and environmental groups in the first place, these conditions could have been avoided. But industry and profit prevailed over common sense and precaution.
A few thousand people remain in the North End of the city. They're clinging to their limited possessions, their memories, and in the case of our journalist narrator, running from their inner demons. And while simply struggling to survive, the community is hit by one of the most powerful storms it has ever seen, leaving nothing but further and complete destruction in its wake. Levees collapse and local highways are flooded, stranding thousands of people. In the face of this catastrophic event, a community that seems to have lost all hope comes together to help each other overcome this devastation. In doing so, a sense of community is renewed, kindness prevails, and hope is restored.
Eric Barnes' timely novel draws the bleak picture of an apocalyptic future that both the environment and society are heading for if the warning signs are ignored. The author's use of dark, vivid descriptions of the desperate conditions that humanity is doomed to endure are extremely realistic and frighteningly plausible. Any reader that enjoys immersing themselves in a novel that allows them to experience Armageddon vicariously will enjoy The City Where We Once Lived.
Read-alikes:
The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
Above the Ether by Eric Barnes
The Dog Stars by Peter Heller
Deborah Formosa, Northport-East Northport Public Library
Outbreak by Davis Bunn
Theo Bishop is an economics professor who also runs a biomedical equipment company. His brother Kenny, the head of a biomedical research company, discovers that an outbreak of an unknown disease has taken place in West Africa and is being covered up by the authorities. The brothers travel to West Africa to investigate the origin of the outbreak before it spreads to other countries.
They encounter biomedical researcher Avery Madison, who has been sent by his employer, to piece together exactly what happened, having long feared this kind of ecological disaster. Together they find the waters full red algae thick enough in places to stand on. Although it soon begins to disappear, they fear that the real danger hasn't disappeared - it has just moved on.
When parts of the Caribbean start turning a familiar red right before the onset of the hurricane season, the implications are clear. If Avery and his colleagues can't convince the world of what is about to happen, toxic destruction could be loosed on America soil.
A book for readers of all ages who enjoy a story about natural disasters especially one brought about by the warming of the planet. This climate change fiction feels very much like non-fiction.
Read-alikes:
Above the Ether by Eric Barnes
Altered Seasons: Monsoonrise by Paul Briggs
New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson
Grave O'Connor, Retired Librarian
American War by Omar El Akkad
By the 2050s, climate change has cause ocean levels to rise to such a degree that Florida is underwater, as is most of the eastern seaboard. The Mississippi River has become an inland sea, wiping out New Orleans, and continues to grow. The Inland Migration has taken over the Midwest, and the US capitol has been moved to Columbus, from which they ban the use of all fossil fuels. Southerners are so outraged by this that Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia secede in 2074, kicking off the second American Civil War. Somehow the Southwest becomes a Mexican Protectorate but that's incidental to the story and the details are unclear.
Beyond the changed geography, climate change doesn't get much discussion. The focus is on arat Chestnut, born in Louisiana by the shores of the Mississippi Sea. Her father is killed in a homicide bombing when she is six, and she and her mother, brother, and twin sister are forced to move to Camp Patience near the border of the Free Southern State in Mississippi. It is there that she learns what it means to be a "Southerner" and her insurrectionist tendencies are honed.
The bulk of the book is the story of what Sarat does, and what happens to her. It's not a light read. It is very creatively written, though, in that the tone echoes very closely books about the actual American Civil War. Here the South's desire for independence shows itself through their defiance of the ban on fossil fuels, but it feels just exactly like it might in a work of historical fiction. Kudos to the author for being able to pull that off, even as he weaves in modern and advanced technology.
Read-alikes:
Splinterland by John Feffer
After the Flood by Kassandra Montag
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
Mara Zonderman, Westhampton Free Library
The Sunlight Pilgrims by Jenni Fagan
After Dylan's grandmother and mother die a few months apart from each other, Dylan is left at loose ends. His family has always run the art house theater in Soho and lived in the apartment above, but now the theater is being foreclosed on and he has nowhere else to go. That is until he finds a note from his mother about a caravan she bought with cash that the bank doesn't know about. It's in the Scottish hills where his grandmother is from, and both his grandmother and mother want their ashes scattered there. So Dylan packs his mother and grandmother's ashes into two Tupperware containers, since the urns won't fit in his suitcase, and starts the journey to Scotland.
While this is happening, the weather is slowly getting colder and colder with the Arctic ice caps melting sending a giant iceberg heading towards land. People everywhere are trying to get out of the cold climates and head toward warmer weather only to find those places aren't all that warm anymore either, and airports are being shut down. As Dylan settles into the new caravan, he makes friends with the people on Ash Lane including a mother and her newly transitioned daughter, Constance and Stella respectively, along with a cadre of odd balls like Barnacle Bill, a local porn star, Satanists, and more. Dylan is also dealing with the guilt of losing the family theater, even though it wasn't his fault, and falling in love with Constance, who is a free spirit with two other lovers. Not to mention that Constance might just change her mind about Dylan if she finds out the secret that Dylan has uncovered about his family's past. As the months change from fall to winter and the temperatures continually drop all the way down to -58 degrees, the people in the caravan park, as well as the small town of Clachan Falls and the world, worry about heat, light, food, freezing to death, and going stir crazy.
Although this book deals with climate change in the form of melting ice caps and freezing temperatures with the worry of having enough food and staying warm, this is not its main focus. The story is really about the characters and the bonds they form during these trying times. Dylan is moving on and finding himself now that he no longer has his mother and grandmother, Stella is trying to transition into a girl worrying about her voice deepening and growing facial hair while dealing with small-minded townspeople who aren't as accepting as they should be, Constance is trying to support herself and her daughter the best she can while fighting a small-town system that doesn't understand what Stella needs or who she is not that she's not a boy names Cael anymore.
The Sunlight Pilgrims is an insightful book about family, those you're born into and those you make. It's about identity and how you see yourself versus how the world sees you. And it's about surviving, whether it be from depression, life in general, or a potential ice age that may not have an end in sight. Overall an interesting book with witty dialogue and a wide cast of characters. It's definitely not a mainstream book to be given to the general public, but for someone who thinks outside the box and doesn't mind a side of quirky to go along with the potential end of the world.
Read-alikes:
This Is How It Always Is by Laurie Frankel
Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer
Fifty Degrees Below by Kim Stanley Robinson
Azuree Agnello, West Babylon Public Library
The Frostlands by John Feffer
The year is 2051 and the small northern Vermont town of Arcadia is under attack. The Arcadian community may have deliberately walled itself off from the rest of the world to become a "farming paradise," but its members are still capable of defending themselves against assaults from paramilitary forces.
Rachel Leopold, a scientist who once studied ice but now works toward finding a solution to global warming, discovers that CRISPR International is behind the latest attack. As time is running out before the next attack, Rachhel works frantically to get information that can be used to stop CRISPR.
Highly recommended for all readers who enjoy apocalyptic science fiction. Though the tone of the story is bleak, this is a fast-paced read with plot twists. Frostland is a stand-alone sequel to Splinterlands.
Read-alikes:
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
Alienation by Ines Estrada
Splinterlands by John Feffer
Sue Ketcham, LIU Post
The unnamed narrator of this story opens on the eve of the birth of her first child. By the fourth page we also learn that quickly rising sea levels are forcing the move of everyone within the "Gulp Zone," turning an entire modern city into a flood of refugees. Our new mother flees with baby Z, her husband R, and his parents, to an isolated home in the country, where they are able to subsist for a time on their supplies. News from the world outside comes in a small trickle, and eventually R, N, and G need to start making runs for supplies. One day, they return without G. One day, R returns alone.
The small family then moves into their car. Illness forces them to find a hospital, and eventually a camp. Mom and baby Z adapt well, but it is too much for R, who leaves rather than staying with so many people in close quarters. On their own, mom and Z befriend another mother O and her child C. When they receive word that their camp is soon to be overrun, they flee and end up on an isolated island with a few others. Later, as the waters recede, our narrator decides to return and make her way back home.
The author's writing is both spare and lyrical. I was amazed at her ability to convey the entire series of events in as few words as she did (136 pages total). Everything is told from the mother's perspective, which creates a spot-on parallel between early motherhood and the isolation of the environment as they try to survive. Larger events almost seem to be taking place in another world, and much is never directly experienced. In the meantime, time passes as marked by baby Z's milestones - her first smile, her first laugh, her first step. The action is clearly meant to parallel baby Z's growth.
Interspersed with the narrative are quotes from religious scripture and world mythology that allude to endings and beginnings. While you never quite know the main characters enough to feel what they might be feeling, the text is compelling (I read it in one sitting). The ending didn't make a lot of sense to me in terms of dystopian narrative, but it could be seen instead as a metaphor for the rebirth of humanity following climate-induced disaster.
Read-alikes:
Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
The Wall by John Lanchester
After the Flood by Kassandra Montag
The small family then moves into their car. Illness forces them to find a hospital, and eventually a camp. Mom and baby Z adapt well, but it is too much for R, who leaves rather than staying with so many people in close quarters. On their own, mom and Z befriend another mother O and her child C. When they receive word that their camp is soon to be overrun, they flee and end up on an isolated island with a few others. Later, as the waters recede, our narrator decides to return and make her way back home.
The author's writing is both spare and lyrical. I was amazed at her ability to convey the entire series of events in as few words as she did (136 pages total). Everything is told from the mother's perspective, which creates a spot-on parallel between early motherhood and the isolation of the environment as they try to survive. Larger events almost seem to be taking place in another world, and much is never directly experienced. In the meantime, time passes as marked by baby Z's milestones - her first smile, her first laugh, her first step. The action is clearly meant to parallel baby Z's growth.
Interspersed with the narrative are quotes from religious scripture and world mythology that allude to endings and beginnings. While you never quite know the main characters enough to feel what they might be feeling, the text is compelling (I read it in one sitting). The ending didn't make a lot of sense to me in terms of dystopian narrative, but it could be seen instead as a metaphor for the rebirth of humanity following climate-induced disaster.
Read-alikes:
Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
The Wall by John Lanchester
After the Flood by Kassandra Montag
Christine Parker-Morales, Comsewogue Public Library
The Overstory by Richard Powers
This 500-page literary tome concerns environmentalism. It is specifically about our trees and how they communicate with each other and with us, if we listen.
The book begins with eight short stories. Some begin in the early 1800s, some are current, and some stories go through generations until we get to the character that is central to the book. These stories and characters are male and female, young and old, professional and white-collar workers, artists and writers, couples and singles. Some have never given trees a thought, while others have lived in them, researched, and written about them.
After the eight introductions, we move on to the story in which nine characters develop feelings for the world's threatened forests. Five of the nine come together as activists against a timber company. Two end up in jail. One dies in an activist fire.
This is a novel that "approaches trees and the threats facing them with wonder, reverence, and an urgency that could be enough to change minds." This is what the author hopes for. "To have these humans fall in love with that tree and want to protect it with their lives and fail to do so. That's something that a reader who's completely tree-blind might sit up and take notice."
The Overstory is not a page turner. It is filled with fantastical descriptions whereas I didn't know if the narrator was describing an actual person, event, or tree. There are hundreds of names of trees and parts of trees. I also had trouble remembering who was who. It was a slow start, but as more characters were introduced, I found myself looking forward to reading more.
This is not a book I would recommend unless you love literary fiction, but I think it's a book that I will remember for a long time.
Read-alikes:
Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver
Flight of Birds by Joshua Lobb
Trees by Ali Shaw
Doomstead Days by Brian Teare
Lori Ludlow, Babylon Public Library
South Pole Station by Ashley Shelby
Struggling with the aftermath of a family tragedy, 30-year-old painter Cooper Gosling is accepted for a one-year assignment to South Pole Station as part of the National Science Foundation's Antarctic Artists and Writers program. Lost in her personal and professional life, Cooper finds comfort and acceptance among the misfits at South Pole Station. While the bitter cold and close quarters do not inspire her, the social hierarchy between the Nailheads (construction crew), Beakers (scientists), and the artists do. Dr. Frank Pavano arrives riling up the scientists with his climate change skepticism. When Cooper helps Pavano with an unauthorized experiment and is maimed in an accident, congressional outrage, an investigation, a global warming scandal, and an interference with funding threatens the station's future.
This story was boring. I kept waiting for the plot to start, but the first two thirds of the book felt more like short stories about the quirky characters' backgrounds than an actual storyline. Some chapters would be in the point of view of a different character, but it would be several pages in before I knew who was talking as the timeline would also flashback without warning. There was lots of scientific jargon between the scientists that I glossed over because it made no sense to me. The final third of the book is where some action took place, but even more so, I was not connected with any of the characters enough to care about what was happening. Other reviews about this novel stated it was funny, but unless the blandness of the story is the joke, I missed it. Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station is a real place in the geographic south pole. I found the information about life there fascinating. After doing a little research, I discovered that the National Science Foundation does have an initiative called the Antarctic Artists and Writers Program with a purpose to "enable serious writings and arts that increase the understanding of the Antarctic and help document America's Antarctic heritage." The talk about the layout of South Pole Station and the discussion about the brutal cold of Antarctica was interesting, but it was not enough to make this a worthwhile read.
Read-alikes:
The Worst Journey in the World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard
Where'd You God, Bernadette by Maria Semple
Bleaker House by Nell Stevens
Nanci Hammer, The Smithtown Library - Nesconset Building
Thirst by Benjamin Warner
Thirst is a debut novel about how a community of people respond when they are suddenly without fresh water. It centers around Eddie Chapman and his wife Laura. The story opens with Eddie deciding to abandon his car and run home to find hid wife rather than sit in a huge, unexplained traffic jam. The power is out, bushes and trees have been singed, and the steam is just a bed of sand. There are ashes everywhere. On his way home, Eddie remembers seeing a boy but is not sure if he was dreaming or not. When Eddie does dream, it is about the boy. The power is out at his home too, and there is no running water anywhere. Laura returns safely to the house and witnesses Eddie being threatened by a man called Bill Peters who followed and harassed Eddie for liquids to give his supposedly sick son. No one in the neighborhood has any idea what has happened and they are trying to survive the situation.
Eddie becomes increasingly paranoid throughout the few days and nights without power and water. He and Laura rely on drinking liquids from canned goods and anything else consumable. The summer heat combined with the constant thirst and dehydration leads to delusional and irrational thinking. Buried pasts emerge and guide decision making among Eddie and his wife. Eddie ends up stealing a five-gallon jug of water from an elderly neighbor and burying it. He fashions a bayonet because he thinks people are going to come after him for the water, and eventually kills Bill Peters and buries him under a tarp in the backyard. Eddie and Laura's neighbors become increasingly volatile as their son becomes ill due to dehydration. While most of the neighbors decide to leave the neighborhood to seek help (non has come at all), Eddie and Laura decide to make their way to Laura's parents' house thirty miles away because they use well water. As they journey through the woods, they come across different factions of people doing what they have to do to survive, some resorting to prostitution in order to secure drinking water. Many deaths occur throughout the story and ultimately Eddie is left to survive on his own. He does eventually find the boy and they try to find water and safety together; however, it is unknown if the boy was ever really there.
The setting of the story is a suburb set apart from main highways and the city. The actual geographical location was not revealed. The author did an excellent job describing what each scene looked like and made you feel really immersed in the story. The descriptions of how the body was feeling and breaking down without water were explicit; the author effectively illustrated the different types of liquids and how the characters reacted when they tasted each one. A lot of unthinkable actions were performed in the story as people tried as best as they could to survive, which really helped to elucidate how desperate their situation was. It is unknown how much time had passed; however, it was probably about a week.
Thirst would appeal to fans who like climate fiction and survivalist stories. Readers who enjoy wondering hoe people would survive in these situations rather than figuring out why a situation happened might also gravitate to this story. There isn't much character development through dialogue; however, the author does give a realistic insight into Eddie's inner workings as he deals with his fears of loss and survival.
Read-alikes:
The City Where We Once Lived by Eric Barnes
Drop by Drop by Morgan Llywelyn
When the English Fall by David Williams
Jessica Brown, Patchogue-Medford Library
Gold Fame Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkins
We meet Luz Dunn within the first few words of this slow-paced novel that takes place in a version of California that has been hit with a severe drought, devastating the land and deserted by a majority of people.
Luz, former poster child of this new California, and her boyfriend Ray, a veteran of the "Forever War," are squatting in a celebrity's abandoned home in Los Angeles. They make due with rations and scavenging. While at a bonfire, a toddler with a soiled, makeshift diaper approaches Luz. She is clearly not being taken care of or supervised properly, as the adult in her group are high on drugs. One of them asks Luz and Ray to watch the toddler and Luz quickly agrees. After a bit of time goes by, they decide to take the child and we witness their transition from being a couple without a care int he world to a family with responsibilities of keeping a child safe, warm, and fed. They now have a purpose and decide to head East where they've heard life is better...
Throughout the novel, Watkins paints a picture of how the world has been forever altered (both by the planet and its inhabitants) due to climate change and our mishandling of it. While the environment that we know has changed, our main characters do not. Luz and Ray don't turn unto wonderful parents or inspirational people. By the close of the novel, they are still who they were at the beginning of the books. The "action" in the story that takes place after they decide to leave LA doesn't make up for this lack of development.
Read-alikes:
Red Rising by Pierce Brown
Future Home of the Living God by Louise Erdrich
California by Edan Lepucki
The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh
Jessicca Newmark, The Smithtown Library - Smithtown Building
