Rachelle Atalla

This is a difficult book for me to review - I feel like I should give it 4 stars, but 3 stars represent better my overall feeling - for the moment.
It is well written and every detail put in there makes sense and is used well. The plot, while slow, is tight and functions well, it gradually becomes darker and even frankly depressing - I'm not going to mention the ending too much as I don't want to give spoilers, but it allowed me to breathe again ;)
It was very hard to read, there were some incredibly difficult scenes so it was challenging, especially from an ethical perspective, but that was the point - and I feel like the author did a good job not shying away from showing everything the way she did even though it felt nearly physically painful to read.
This book can be a warning about what we could expect in terms of climate change consequences if we don't make changes now, but this lack of hope in nearly the entire story makes it hard to read until the end and get all we can get from the book. In any case, it's an exploration of plausible "what ifs" and of human nature - how human society can deteriorate, what people do when they're desperate, that I found incredibly interesting and powerful, so I guess in terms of pure craft I should give 4 stars, but it was so bleak and mostly devoid of joy (most of what Aida does that could be joyful isn't done joyfully), that I struggled to finish the book (also, the lack of dialogue markers didn't help, although to be fair I found the dialogues reasonably clear most of the time) as I'm already climate anxious anyway. I hard a hard time relating to people farming cattle, but I found out that my empathy was there for every being involved in the story and it did make it even harder to read. I did read everything because I was curious as to whether the situation would improve, who Evelyn, Peter and Rebecca really were/wanted, and if Aida would find more joy and purpose.
It's the sort of book where a star system doesn't seem enough to convey my thoughts, and my rating might change after more time has passed.

I want to thank NetGalley and Hodder & Stoughton for giving my a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.… (meer)