Ratings9
Average rating3.6
Life is about more than just surviving... An unforgettable, inventive, and riveting epic saga about a mother, her daughter and their struggle to survive in a post-apocalyptic flooded world, which signals the arrival of an extraordinary new talent. 'An adventure rife with great peril and high emotional stakes, this postapocalyptic novel reads like a fast-paced screenplay: intense, visceral, and relentless.' Library Journal It's 2031, and the world has been utterly transformed. After years of rising floodwaters, all that's left is an archipelago of mountaintop colonies surrounded by a deep expanse of open water. Civilization as it once was is gone. Bands of pirates roam the waters, in search of goods and women to breed. Some join together to create a new kind of society, while others sail alone, barely surviving. Myra and her young daughter, Pearl, survive by fishing from their small boat, visiting small hamlets and towns on dry land to trade for supplies and information. The sole purpose of Myra's existence is to protect Pearl, while mourning the loss of her oldest daughter, Row, who was kidnapped during the last terrifying storm surge. For eight years Myra has searched for the girl that she knows, in her bones and her heart, still lives. In a violent confrontation with a stranger, Myra hears that Row was last seen in a far-off encampment of raiders on the coast of what used to be Greenland. Throwing aside her usual caution, she and Pearl embark on a perilous voyage into the icy northern seas to rescue her. A compulsively readable novel of dark despair and soaring hope, After the Flood is a magnificent, exhilarating, action-packed, and sometimes frightening odyssey laced with wonder - an affecting and wholly original saga, both redemptive and astonishing. 'The searing, often brutal story of a mother's terrifying quest to find her missing daughter in a post-apocalyptic world. Haunting and shocking.' Liv Constantine, bestselling author of The Last Mrs. Parrish '[A] brilliantly imagined novel about love and desperation, set in an astonishing new world ... utterly gripping' Karin Slaughter, international bestselling author of The Last Widow 'An intriguing and innovative woman-centered swashbuckling quest narrative' Publishers Weekly
Reviews with the most likes.
What a mess! At first, Montag does a decent job of world building and depicting a post-flood apocalypse works in which little land is left. But, the book devolves from there.
How is it that there are only a couple of ports when there are many mountains over 10,000 feet above sea level? Also, how are any of the remaining ports producing crops when the tops of mountains are not good bases for agriculture? I hat happened to all of the aircraft carriers and other types of boats? However, let's say we can suspend disbelief on the “science” in this story.
The characters are either sloppily sketched or just stupid and annoying. Myra consistently makes the most idiotic choices available; I find it hard to believe she'd survived 6 years on a ship with just her daughter being that ridiculous. Pearl would also not have made it that long by being so disobedient and bratty. But, who wouldn't be with a mother whose entire focus is on her other daughter?
Then there's the crew of the Sedna; as soon as they get into a port, they immediately head for a bar and split up, never bothering to look around for raiders, which were everywhere.
The plot could have been interesting, but it's really just boring and I found myself skimming the last 100 pages.