Reviews with content warning for Suicide - 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

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!

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krys_kilz's review against another edition

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adventurous tense medium-paced

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

2.0

I picked up this book because the concept sounded amazing and I really like dystopian science fiction, especially books that deal with climate change and environmental issues. I was sad to find the characters were incredibly flat and the use of metaphor was extremely heavy handed. I almost didn't finish the book because I felt so disconnected from the characters and story, but I pushed through in the hopes it would get better. It never really got better and overall I found this book incredibly disappointing.

Side note: I found all the characters very unlikeable, but that's not why they felt flat. I don't mind unlikeable characters and often find them incredibly interesting. The problem for me was that none of the characters felt believable. I never felt like I truly got to know them. This on top of spotty world building really sunk the book for me.

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