Dry

The best thing going for this book is just how real it could be.

In our age of politicians passing the buck (more so than usual) it does not seem outside the realm of possibility of this happening, especially with the rise of disasters like the Flint Water Crisis. This factor was what made me pick up this book on sale at my local Barnes and Nobel, and I am glad I did, because this is one of the better books that I have read this year.

The cast of characters all run the gauntlet in terms of people you would meet in this kind of disaster. We have Alyssa, who is the every-girl of the story. She is athletic and has what one could call ‘normal' middle class parents, and a little brother in a suburban community. Then we have Kelton, whose family lives next door to Alyssa, and who are the preppers one occasionally finds. He and his family are friendly enough, but they have strict limits when it comes to sharing what they have, which becomes more challenging as the Tap Out continues.

When it comes to a book like this, one of the most important things to get right is the mounting tension in the story, and the objective being the central focus of the plot. The author manages to get both of these things right, as our group travels around trying to get to Kelton's bug out location, or die trying. Along the way they meet new people, some good most bad, as they soon discover that, assuming they get there, they will not be the same people as when they left. The moments of action are spaced out well, and a lot of the situations they get into make sense, based on where they are and what they are trying to do. (No spoilers here, I promise).

On the other hand, there are some things that kept this from being perfect for me. One of which would be the fact that there is a character break up in this story between Alyssa and someone else that does not really make sense in the context of almost dying of thirst. I won't spoil it, only to say that, yes, she has every right to be angry, but under the present circumstances, I would have filed it away for dealing with later. Another issue are the changes in POV. While many of them occur to the main group that we are following, including Alyssa and co. a few happen outside them. We see the viewpoints from random drivers, news crewmen, and pilots as the Tap Out gets worse and worse. The only issue with these is that, while they are used well to show the scope of the devastation, the characters featured are only used once, and then never visited again. Couple this with the fact that they are not written very well, and they turned into parts I wanted to skip, rather than ones that I was looking forward to.

Still, I thought that this book was well written with major action scenes and well-chosen dialogue, with always gets bonus points from me. This is one of those books where you need to have a bottle of water by your side, because it will make you thirsty for more. I give I a four out of five.