I'm always willing to push my reading boundaries but dystopian is such a tricky genre for me. After reading a lot of great reviews I really wanted to love this. However, I struggled and struggled and just couldn't get into the story or the characters. It is also so bleak! I now concede that this is .just not a good match for me - I am going to DNF for now and maybe come back to it later.

Really enjoyed this book. I am looking forward to more by this author and am looking forward to recommending it to my customers.

You wouldn't want to be stranded at sea with this snooze-fest.

Bleak, bland, and pointless!

So apparently the seafloor split, and water from beneath the earth slowly rose up, and over the next estimated 100 years, covered the world in water. But even that's wishy-washy, because even though they only lost communications – internet, TV, radio – thirteen years beforehand, there is no concrete record of exactly what occurred, and it's also unclear how much time has passed since the flood began?

For seven years Myra has been relentlessly searching for her daughter Rowena (Row), kidnapped by the child's father. Just when she's about to give up hope, Myra receives information regarding Row's last known whereabouts. And the journey begins – a very long and tedious one.

A major issue I had with After the Flood was the main character, Myra. I did not feel an ounce of sympathy for her, she was unlikable and a bad mother to boot. Her obsession with finding Row, came at the expense of the safety of her youngest daughter Pearl, who she constantly put in danger situations, and didn't seem to care about at all. This was clear from the first chapter, as the boat containing Row was sailing away, a heavily-pregnant Myra jumped into the treacherous floodwaters, risking one child in an attempt to save the other. And this was the theme throughout, poor Pearl didn't stand a chance.

I'm still perplexed over why Myra's husband/partner? Jacob took Row in the first place? There was a weak explanation given, but it just didn't ring true. Even more puzzling was why Myra still had feelings for Jacob as not only did he possess not a single redeeming quality but he stole her daughter, and left her behind, pregnant with his child!

Added to this the book dragged, and there was too much telling and not enough showing. The prose was poetic and there were a lot of action scenes, but since I wasn't emotionally invested, it was hard to care who lived or died. There was a heap of gratuitous violence as well. As a fan of the movie Waterworld and dystopian, I was very excited to read this, but it just didn't measure up.

I'd like to thank Netgalley, Harper Collins Australia, and Kassandra Montag for the e-ARC.

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How much would you risk today to lay the ghosts of your past to rest? The world has been ravaged by flood waters, whole cities are underground and civilisation as we know it, collapsed. In its place are trading settlements, raider ships, hunger, loneliness, despair.

In this world, Myra has eked out a small, quiet existence for herself & her 7 yo daughter Pearl. Yet, she is haunted by the ghost of her eldest, Row, kidnapped by her husband while Myra was pregnant. Since then, she’s never stopped searching for the little girl she lost. A chance encounter with a raider leads her to believe that she’s been taken to a far off settlement where girls who come of age, not far off for Row, are used as ‘breeders’. Myra will risk everything to be reunited with her girl, but at what cost?

My love of dystopian fiction is no secret & this one didn’t disappoint. With a kick ass, stoic female heroine, the novel explores the bond between mothers and daughters, the tenuous rules that govern society and how far a mother’s love will stretch past what’s morally right once chaos erupts.

It had a good balance of world building, without getting too bogged down in the detail. The pacing was good throughout. I was furiously turning the pages, heart wedged firmly in throat, to see what happened in the end. That ending though!
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This is definitely one of my favourite modern dystopian novels, possibly because this is a future that could happen.