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A review by hkg
Dust by Alison Stine
emotional
hopeful
reflective
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
4.75
Thea’s hearing parents, especially her individualist homesteader father, ironically rarely listen to her or her younger sister Amelia. Kept home from school, discouraged from discussing her lack of hearing in her left ear, exhausted by her daily allotment of neverending farm chores, Thea is living her father’s dream of self-sufficiency, which is more of a nightmare of regressive gender roles and limited access to community or education.
Thea is easy to root for - she’s strong, perceptive, and increasingly determined to speak up for herself - and her gaps in hearing, beautifully represented by underscores, let us feel the impact of her disability acutely. But she knows how to listen better than her parents do, and if they are to survive their newest climate change threat, she must get them to hear that reciprocity and connectivity are the keys to survival in the dust.
Grappling with themes of disability, climate change, and the gender inequality that so often underpins the male ideal of “getting back to the land”, Dust is a fabulously devourable YA book.
Thea is easy to root for - she’s strong, perceptive, and increasingly determined to speak up for herself - and her gaps in hearing, beautifully represented by underscores, let us feel the impact of her disability acutely. But she knows how to listen better than her parents do, and if they are to survive their newest climate change threat, she must get them to hear that reciprocity and connectivity are the keys to survival in the dust.
Grappling with themes of disability, climate change, and the gender inequality that so often underpins the male ideal of “getting back to the land”, Dust is a fabulously devourable YA book.