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A review by enchantedfiction
Dry by Jarrod Shusterman, Neal Shusterman
4.0
Water. It's something we kind of take for granted. It's always there at the touch of a faucet. But what if you went to turn the faucet on, like you do every day, and nothing dribbled out? Then you realized it's not just you, everyone's faucets have run dry? When the one necessity of life disappears from the regular source, it becomes a survival game. Well, that's how it all happened in Southern California. They call it, the Tap-Out. Alyssa is forced to think fast on her feet after her parents disappear looking for water and she is left with her 10-year old brother and her neighbor Kelton. People are turning on each other, even stooping to violence towards one another for just the smallest hope of water. Can the small band these three dredge up from the survivors make it to the end of the Tap-Out? Or will everything go up in smoke?
Dry had some really awesome moments. It was full of action, adventure, and conflict. The writing style was easy to picture and get into, and I really liked the narration style. The snapshots throughout the parts was really cool because it brought things to a broader scale, and it followed some side characters that you wouldn't really expect to hear from again. The characters served their purpose without being too telling, and when a book can make you feel like you need to drink a gallon of water just by listening to it, it's doing its job. The real-life aspect that this could become an actual possibility is frightening, and after finishing makes you realize just how thankful you are for the resources we take for granted. Alyssa was a likable character, and her growth in the story was kind of a coming of age type thing, realizing that the world isn't all sunshines and rainbows and having to make those tough decisions. I also liked the underlying slight sociopath feel of Kelton's character because there aren't enough of those written about. Jacqui was the hard edged character that you just kind of have to like because she's had it rough, and she's just doing what it takes to survive. Henry severely pissed me off, but that was the reason for his character, people who take advantage of others for their own gain. The group ended up being completely rounded with all different personalities that didn't even really overlap at all, but in very subtle ways fit together like a puzzle.
Interestingly enough, the issues I had were at the beginning, and at the end. I felt like it took me longer than anticipated to really get gripped by the story, it started out kind of slow and non-committal on what was going to happen. Though I realize that was probably intentional based off of how the events unfolded and snowballed from there, but it was hard to concentrate on. Stupidly, the ending didn't really feel satisfying because (morbidly enough) no one close to the main characters died. I feel like when reading books like this there's always at least one character that dies that impacts the main character/s in some way. If that's either a sacrifice to save someone else, a parent who doesn't make it back, or what have you. But the only thing that really changed when the Tap-Out was over was that the dog didn't come back. Which, there really aren't enough happier endings out there for stories like these, so it was kind of nice to have one of those, but also kind of jarring because it goes against everything most stories tell you. So I'm super conflicted about the ending...I really want to be happy that everyone the main characters cared about made it out alive, but at the same time I wanted something MORE. If Henry had been exposed for taking someone else's credit on live tv, that would have been some sweet revenge. But it was also super lifelike that he took the credit and got away with it due to the type of person he was.
I would highly recommend Dry if you enjoy dystopian type stories. The character growth was good, there was a lot of good imagery, and the writing style is really nice. The audiobook version is a full cast, which I highly recommend any books that have a full cast. :)
Dry had some really awesome moments. It was full of action, adventure, and conflict. The writing style was easy to picture and get into, and I really liked the narration style. The snapshots throughout the parts was really cool because it brought things to a broader scale, and it followed some side characters that you wouldn't really expect to hear from again. The characters served their purpose without being too telling, and when a book can make you feel like you need to drink a gallon of water just by listening to it, it's doing its job. The real-life aspect that this could become an actual possibility is frightening, and after finishing makes you realize just how thankful you are for the resources we take for granted. Alyssa was a likable character, and her growth in the story was kind of a coming of age type thing, realizing that the world isn't all sunshines and rainbows and having to make those tough decisions. I also liked the underlying slight sociopath feel of Kelton's character because there aren't enough of those written about. Jacqui was the hard edged character that you just kind of have to like because she's had it rough, and she's just doing what it takes to survive. Henry severely pissed me off, but that was the reason for his character, people who take advantage of others for their own gain. The group ended up being completely rounded with all different personalities that didn't even really overlap at all, but in very subtle ways fit together like a puzzle.
Interestingly enough, the issues I had were at the beginning, and at the end. I felt like it took me longer than anticipated to really get gripped by the story, it started out kind of slow and non-committal on what was going to happen. Though I realize that was probably intentional based off of how the events unfolded and snowballed from there, but it was hard to concentrate on. Stupidly, the ending didn't really feel satisfying because (morbidly enough) no one close to the main characters died. I feel like when reading books like this there's always at least one character that dies that impacts the main character/s in some way. If that's either a sacrifice to save someone else, a parent who doesn't make it back, or what have you. But the only thing that really changed when the Tap-Out was over was that the dog didn't come back. Which, there really aren't enough happier endings out there for stories like these, so it was kind of nice to have one of those, but also kind of jarring because it goes against everything most stories tell you. So I'm super conflicted about the ending...I really want to be happy that everyone the main characters cared about made it out alive, but at the same time I wanted something MORE. If Henry had been exposed for taking someone else's credit on live tv, that would have been some sweet revenge. But it was also super lifelike that he took the credit and got away with it due to the type of person he was.
I would highly recommend Dry if you enjoy dystopian type stories. The character growth was good, there was a lot of good imagery, and the writing style is really nice. The audiobook version is a full cast, which I highly recommend any books that have a full cast. :)