All the Water in the World

An emotional, dark, and challenging read exploring ecological collapse in a post-apocalyptic world as the remaining survivors struggle to survive and find a sanctuary while battling the elements and a depraved society

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

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.

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.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for this ARC.

This story was beautiful, I absolutely loved this journey! I'm a sucker for a good post apocalyptic book, it's my favorite genre. This one was such a beautiful tale. 

Its told through 13 year old Nonie's eyes and I loved seeing her growth through this. It reminded a lot of Life As We Knew It, one of my favorite series from a long time ago. 

This is definitely a slow burn journey, alternating time periods of Nonie's life to tell the story. But it's a beautiful tale and beautiful journey. I absolutely loved getting thrown into this world of the world ending but finding your tribe in the middle of it all. 

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.