Reviews with content warning for Death - After the Flood

I thought I would love this. The beginning, maybe the first 30%, was excellent. I loved the world building, the beautiful writing, the intrigue of the story and most of the characters. Sadly, it went into a direction I didn't fully enjoy and left me with a disappointing ending.

I'm glad I read it though because the world building and atmosphere are among the best I encountered in dystopian literature. After a massive flood, the majority of earth's surface is underwater. Only a few managed to survive and flee to the highest regions still above water, many live on boats and ships trying to get by with fishing, scavenging and trading. Myra and her 8-year-old daughter Pearl live on a small boat, surviving, fishing and searching what is left of the North and South American continent for Myra's firstborn daughter, Row. When the flood came, Myra's husband kidnapped Row and disappeared with her on a boat, leaving the pregnant Myra behind.
At the beginning of the book, Myra gets a hint where her daughter might be and tries with all her power to get there. It's a long journey and Myra needs a bigger ship, provisions and help to reach her destinations.

At first the story is rather calm and hopeful with a focus on world building and a beginning adventure. The atmosphere shifts however when Myra encounters obstacles, hardships and dangers. I liked the themes like love, especially motherly love, loss, grief, found family, trust and betrayal, sacrifice and selfishness. But in addition to these themes, there was also a lot of action with very high stakes. Unfortunately, the plot lost me when everything that can go wrong actually went wrong. It got really depressing, really quickly. And the ending dragged for such a long time, I thought it would never end.

Overall, I loved a lot of the book, but there were too many things that weakened my enjoyment in the end.

Content Warnings

betsygrace's review against another edition

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dark reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I actually liked this!! I feel like there was not as much world building in the beginning as I needed; there was a lot of character backstory. Which is fine! But a lot of the world building happened along the way. It had me continually being like “huh, I never would’ve thought of that” so it was kind of cool. The cover of this book is freaking stunning. I listened to it on audiobook and really preferred that.

Content Warnings

emilyeehaw's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional tense

3.75

this was pretty good for my first read of the new year! at times i found myra hard to connect with, but by the end of the story i felt for her and her situation. she was tasked with not only caring for her daughter in a post-apocalyptic world but was also searching for the daughter she lost.

i was surprised by how action-heavy this book seemed at times. that's not always my favorite aspect of a story, so i definitely didn't feel connected to those bits of the book. otherwise, i did find the dynamic between myra, pearl, and the other members of the sedna to be interesting. i liked the found family aspect of their time on the ship and it was nice to read about myra finally trusting people. i especially liked daniel and the role he played in the story, and how his relationship with myra developed.

some of the reveals of this book didn't hit me as hard as i feel like they were supposed to. especially abran's past and daniel's involvement with some shady stuff. maybe that's a sign i wasn't completely connected with some of the characters and their backgrounds.

this didn't hold a flame to my favorite post-apocalyptic book....station eleven, but honestly i wasn't expecting it to!

Content Warnings

beccaand's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Content Warnings

ska1224's review against another edition

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challenging dark hopeful sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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