All the Water in the World

I had only read a few pages of All the Water In the World when I realized it was going to be an emotional read for me. It’s a devastating, inspiring, and all too realistic depiction of the effects of climate change on our world. Nonie’s story shows us that there’s always reason to hope, even after the world has ended.

The pacing is slow, which added to the tension and stress I felt as 13-year-old Nonie and her family struggled through the dangers of the world to make their way to a safe place. While there wasn’t a ton of action, there were a couple scenes that had my heart pounding out of my chest and though I could have torn through the book in a couple sittings, it took me longer than usual because I had to take breaks to sit with my thoughts (or distract myself from them).

As for the writing: fantastic. Because I have aphantasia, I always rely on authors to provide excellent descriptions and Eiren Caffall did a beautiful job painting a picture of a world ravaged by climate change. And I think the choice to tell the story through the eyes of a child was an excellent one.

I love that some chapters were flashbacks to Nonie’s time living at the museum with all the other survivors. Nonie was the only one among them who was too young to remember much about the time before the city was flooded and it was interesting to see how her experience differed from theirs. Honestly, everything was interesting. Even with the slow pacing, I was never bored.

Eiren Caffall doesn’t sugarcoat a possible disastrous future that awaits us and I can’t recommend All the Water In the World enough to anyone looking for a serious, thought-provoking read.

I received an ARC of this book from St. Martin’s Press via Netgalley.

I am a sucker for a found family and the small details that really make the world of the book come alive. This book had that in spades! I love the way that kids were taught and they way that they looked at their “home” - the Museum of Natural History. Nonie's “powers” were just the slightest touch, which I thought was well done. Their journey to the new safe area was interesting and I liked the different kinds of challenges faces and people that they found along the way.
My only complaint is that the character of Keller was a little uncomfortable because he felt too tropey, but some of that was resolved by the end.
Overall this was an interesting post apocalyptic found family journey book.

I live near New York City and spend much of my childhood running around Central Park, climbing on the glacial rocks, looking at the statues and visiting The Central Park Zoo. I fondly look back at the hours spend wandering around the Met, MoMA, & American Museum of Natural History looking at the animal dioramas, sitting in the Planetarium or standing and staring in awe at the Blue Whale and dinosaurs. As I grew older I visited West Point, FDR's Estate and Park, the sculpture walks at Storm King, gawked at The Palisades and even visited Lee, Massachusetts. So, why is this list of my activities important to my review, this book literally took me on a road trip of myself and made me stare at the face of a world without these things and experiences, vividly and in detail. I saw a future where what is special to me was erased and forgotten due to global climate change and ocean level rise. You can tell this book's theme, narrative, and writing were amazing and hit too close to home for me. Now that, to me, is a book worth reading and owning. Although this is a world that is fictional, Nonie and her family live in a world this is all too possible today and one that becomes even more probable with every passing year. I felt as if my world was being, literally, washed away and a newer, unknown, and nightmarish one was emerging to take its place that I did not want to experience .

A good storyteller can share events that exist in their mind with a listener, but a great story teller puts you in the middle of a story and has you experience it with the characters. Eiren Caffall has done this with me -and thus the reason for my introduction to this review. This book, though written beautifully for a YA reader will resonate with anyone. This book left me stymied at several points because of the realness of it. It made me stop reading several times because I felt the bleakness of its present through the adults that once worked for the Museum that they are living in and their understanding of the altered world they exist in. I was transported back through the Hall of Plains Animal, to the Woodland People's exhibit to see the giant birch bark canoe, has he tearing up at the loss of the North Pacific People's Totem Poles rotting away; however, despite this all there was the hope that The Farm would be there to get them through it all and in Nonie and her sister I could see the fight to begin again. All is not lost despite the bleakness, humankind will move forward. And the Children of this New World will reclaim it with their grit, drive, and determination. This is a slow book, but one that used that pacing to transport me.

Power, beauty, vision, and hope all lie at the heart of this flooded landscape. I hope this book is viewed as speculative science fiction when it is looked back at in 100 years rather than as a missed Memo and warning. I hope we take a note of the question that is so often posed in this work today - "Didn't they know this coming? Couldn't they have done anything?" "

Thank you NetGalley and St Martin's Press for the ebook I read