All the Water in the World

Remember how we all envied the two runaway kids in [b:From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler 3980 From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler E.L. Konigsburg https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327784751l/3980.SY75.jpg 1384549] who hid out in the NY Metropolitan Museum of Art? It turns out that it's not quite as much fun when you're in a dystopian future. Thirteen-year old Nonie lives with her older sister, father, and a small band of scientists on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History in a city ravaged by floods and fires. When a typhoon destroys their home, Nonie's family and their friend Fuller escape in canoe that was built for a Native American museum exhibit. Their eventual destination is a farm in western Massachusetts where Nonie's late mother grew up and where her aunt may be waiting. As a relative newbie to post-apocalyptic cli-fi, I can't compare All the Water in the World to other books in the genre, but as a fiction lover I can say that it is well-written and compelling, with a distinct voice. It took me a while to engage with the plot, as the first 30% is heavy on flashback scenes of the family's life before they came to “Amen.” But once they set off on their expedition, the pace escalates and doesn't let up. The scene in which Father and Keller argue about the best way to get to the Hudson River through flooded streets is both realistically New York and apocalyptically horrifying. This is not a book for the tender-hearted or squeamish; the travelers face deadly threats of both the natural and human kind , and not everyone survives. Nonie reads as a person with autism, whose pragmatic narration is a factor of both her neurodivergence and the traumas she has experienced. She doesn't have the luxury of expressing her emotions for most of the journey. As with any good speculative fiction, it's unfortunately very easy to see how we could get from where we are now to the dystopia that Eiren Caffall imagines (especially in light of the current Los Angeles area wildfires), but at least she ends her story with some hope for humanity's new beginning.