"Urgent and poignant, Road Out of Winter is a glimpse of an all-too-possible near future, with a chosen family forged in the face of dystopian collapse. With the gripping suspense of The Road and the lyricism of Station Eleven, Stine’s vision is of a changing world where an unexpected hero searches for a place hope might take root."
Looking forward to reading.

This book was a true dystopian fiction, cults and enclaves everywhere.

Wil, left alone by her parents on a marijuana farm, was a true testament of “figure it out”. Her character had great development and I found her story to be chilling.

I love that this was a mystery/thriller and there weren’t really any sub genres that overpowered this story!

I really enjoyed this read. Not my usual read but really got into it. I loved how it ended. Was hopeful wiper wrapping everything up in a tidy package.

Thank you to the publisher for my copy - all opinions are my own.

This is such a great mystery read, and perfect for the snowy winter season. I thoroughly enjoyed the characters and the atmospheric tension that Alison creates with her storytelling, that had me glued to the page.

Very unique perspective of dystopian literature. Very dark. But very well done and well-written. I recommend to those who truly enjoy the apocalyptic/dystopian genre and are looking for something new.

-- This review is several years past the release date due to the many issues of 2020, but a huge thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an early copy of the book.

DNF - Did not finish. I did not connect with the writing style or plot and will not be finishing this title. Thank you, NetGalley and Publisher for the early copy!

What Stine created with this book is honestly, one wild ride. It is bleak and dark in a hauntingly real way. Reading this while going through a global pandemic was a little surreal. ROAD OUT OF WINTER is wonderfully written and simply compelling.

This book was just okay. I didn’t love it. I didn’t hate it. I just read it. I’m not sure what it is but I just wish there was more to it.

I am sorry for not reviewing fully but I don’t have the time to read this at the moment. I believe that it wouldn't benefit you as a publisher or your book if I only skimmed it and wrote a rushed review. Again, I am sorry for not fully reviewing!

When the ARC for Alison Stine’s Road Out of Winter dropped onto my Kindle, I was excited to read it. I love post-apocalyptic fiction, though I stay away from works that have downer endings. Unfortunately, Road Out of Winter, while it was excellent in some ways, didn’t quite live up to my expectations.
The setting is interesting and well drawn. This is a climate-disaster world caught in perpetual winter, at least in southeastern Ohio, where Wyl, the central character, lives. Spring no longer comes. Game is dying out or being hunted to extinction. Food, fuel, and other supplies are scarce. The situation is obviously untenable, but Wyl stays in the hope of hearing from her mother, who left with her lover. When a postcard arrives from her mom with a California return address, Wyl decides to set out and find her parent. At this point, the story becomes a road book and examines the ways of the people Wyl and her traveling companions meet along the way have chosen to cope with the situation.

Stine describes the people and the setting beautifully. For example:

“Everyone looked gray as overwashed clothes, exhausted and faded, their eyes turning up at the shelves as if they held the answers.”

“That was the other thing I felt, standing in the doorway of Grayson’s house: a cold so sharp it cut me. A chest-hurting cold, cold that made it hard to breathe. That meant the heat hadn’t been for a long time. Cold had crept into the folds of the drapes, into the cracks on the floor.”

“The trees shone silver with frost, like they had been shellacked, like the snow globes Mama and I made one winter for presents…Glitter snowed on the miniature world, and it was pretty, safe, to look at the fake cold, contained behind the glass.”

While the pace is generally good, the passage of several months in the opening chapter without scene breaks between month shifts was hard for me to deal with. The inclusion of several lengthy flashbacks in the middle of dialogue also hurt the pace. Overall, though, the story moved well.

I liked the protagonists here. Wyl offers a lot to root for. Abandoned by her mother and her mom’s marijuana-growing partner, Wyl tries keeps the pot business going in the basement of the farmhouse where they lived. She has one close friend, a girl who’s a member of a restrictive religious sect known only as the Church, and their mutual loyalty remains important to Wyl even after they part ways. When Wyl sees someone in trouble, she reaches out to help, and therein lies part of my problem with this book.

One of the things I enjoy about post-apocalyptic fiction is the effort to rebuild a society. This process often starts with creating a small, trusted group. Successfully forming the group depends on the main character’s criteria for deciding correctly who is trustworthy and merits inclusion. That process gets short shrift in Road Out of Winter.

When Wyl meets an injured stranger, she not only takes him to the clinic in town but takes him under her wing. Then she brings him back to her home. Why? Second thoughts after are well and good, but I missed the situational analysis any woman living alone would make up front. A similar situation occurs with a man she rescues from a riot. Although she doesn’t know who he is, and despite the riot, she dives in to rescue him. She thinks at one point that a character can’t go with her to find her mom. She won’t take him. A few pages later, she decides to take him because she doesn’t want to travel alone. I would’ve liked to see some transition in her thinking.

People’s choices to leave her group are similarly abrupt. There’s no foreshadowing, and then the person announces they’re not going on with the group.

Despite being beautifully described, the winter landscape posed another problem for me. No one knows how far south the perpetual winter extends, though California is supposedly free of it. Yet no one worries about how people are going to survive if spring never comes again. On the road, discussing whether to stay in a particular spot, no one brings up the subject of how people will eat when the supplies on hand run out.

The biggest problem I had with the book was the ending. I expect post-apocalyptic fiction to reach a resolution derived from the protagonist’s choices and efforts. That includes full awareness of the upsides and downsides of those choices, especially the final one. I don’t find it satisfying when the character assumes she’ll be okay among people she hasn’t seen and knows nothing about.

The things that bothered me about the book might not bother other readers, so I’ve tried to set them out so people can judge for themselves. I would have finished the book even if I hadn’t committed to reviewing it because the characters are engaging, the world is beautifully sketched, and the situation is interesting.

Recommended ~ 3.5 stars

Parts of this were interesting enough but some aspects get forced and random. Didn't love it, it fell very flat for me.

This was strangely a perfect book to read during quarantine. The deep seated loneliness, the impending doom...it was wonderful and quiet.

It's been winter for way too long, but Wylodine is surviving. Her mother and her best friend have both left the town she has lived in for so long, to find some place warmer. When she receives a post card from her mother in California, she feels like she has nothing to lose, and so she hooks her tiny house up to her truck and sets out. Along the way she picks up a few people, who could help or hinder her journey. As they make the trek, they meet people who have different ideas on how to survive the never ending winter. Will, Wylodine make it to her mother or have to succumb to the cold?

Thank you to MIRA & NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

When this book started out, I wasn't exactly sure how it was going to go. I like it when the weather is cold, but I don't know if I could stand a never ending winter. What do you do when everything starts to shut down because it's too cold to function. Food trucks and gas trucks can't get through to stock stores because it never stops snowing and the roads are always terrible. People have taken over parks and stadiums and made it their home and will defend it at any cost.

This is the first cli-fi book I have read. A climate change fiction book. I think I would read another one in this genre, as long as it stayed in a world I could see myself living in. I'm not really big into science fiction and this book could be during any part of time, past, present or future. Although it couldn't be too far in the past since they are using cell phones in this book. I will definitely read something by this author again.

A book with a tiny house, strong female protagonist, gardening, snow and a character named Dance. What could possibly be better? Oh, I know, throw in the end of the world and we have a hit. Seriously, read this book.

Rating: 6.5/10

Thanks to the publisher and author for a review copy of Road Out of Winter for review consideration. This did not influence my thoughts or opinions.

There is just something about post-apocalyptic/dystopian fiction that draws me in. I don’t know if it is because of the direction our country is headed in or seeing devastation unlike our own reality, but it is always intriguing to see the different takes authors delve into within their novels.

Stine takes a somewhat similar approach to McCarthy’s ‘The Road’, though instead of ash, the country is covered in an extraordinary amount of the white fluffy stuff. This, of course, leads to an extreme shortage of crops, which leads to an extreme shortage of meat, which leads to an extreme uptick in insanity and violence. Which, you know, is exactly the sort of chaos society is expected to fall into based on the fact that we are a fallen people.

Wylodine, our main POV, has been left behind to continue her “family business” of growing sweet sweet Mary Jane, but with Spring deciding to turn its back on everyone, winter’s bite gets deeper and deeper. She decides to journey away from home in search of her mother, and on the way, meets a few decent folks balanced out with several unsavory characters. The way she grows throughout the novel is probably my favorite part, mixed with the suspense that unfolds as they journey along south.

While I did enjoy the novel and Stine’s writing, it just didn’t blow me away. Her take on a post-apocalyptic America was definitely original, but I sort of saw everything coming from a mile away (except maybe a couple of the instances with large groups of ‘unsavories’).

If you want a fairly quick read in the vein of McCarthy and Mandel, Road Out of Winter is a pretty good place to get your kicks.

this was a really enjoyable scifi novel, the characters were great and I really enjoyed the plot. I look forward to more from the author.

3.5
Interesting take on dystopian fiction. Loved the concept. VERY different plotline which was welcome to this reader.
I really got to enjoy Wil...the character had the most growth "no pun intended". Her ragtag crew that she picked up on her way to CA was an interesting bunch. Can't imagine 2 years of snow with no summer. That concept really hit hard.

Link coming soon.

Thanks to NetGalley and Mira for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

3.8 stars

Wylodine (Wil) has been living on her own in rural Ohio since her mom and boyfriend moved to California last year. Teenage Wil was left to run the farm and it’s marijuana business. Summer never arrived and it is winter-type cold all the time. She leaves the farm to go in search of her mother.

Wil is smart, cunning and has a green thumb. She finds friends along the way and also meets a lot of horrible people. I didn’t care for the ending as it felt a bit rushed and unfinished. Overall a decent dystopian novel.

When the world as she knows it comes to an end with winters that stop even the hardiest of crops from growing, Wil must find a way to survive.

Road out of Winter was a completely different read for me and an unexpected surprise. I enjoy the apocalypse and dystopian genres but these are usually virus and ‘zombie’ related. Road out of Winter took the really simple route on this – the world starts to become colder and locked in a never-ending winter but we are never really introduced to the reason why this has happened. The book is solely focused on Wil and her friends and their fight to survive.

Wil is a really interesting character; she is young but very independent – her parents were weed growers and have abandoned her to start a new life. When the cold hits she realises the importance of friendships and survival. I really enjoyed how all of the characters in the book were well drawn out, although they were lacking in backstory. I didn’t really feel like it mattered too much and even the ones that were only introduced fleetingly left an impact on the reader and the story.
The plot was well constructed, although I was worried it was going to end on a cliff hanger as we got closer and closer to the end with no resolution. I did really enjoy how it ended though and it felt like a self-contained story but the way is left open if Alison Stine wants to continue it in another book. There was a lot of tension and action but this was balanced with heart felt moments. The whole thing also felt very gritty and realistic.

Overall, Road out of Winter was an interesting take on the dystopian genre and was well crafted with great characters and an action packed plot. Thank you to NetGalley & Harlequin – Mira for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

What do you do when the second time summer doesn't come and nothing grows? A tale about one girl's trials as she tries makes her way from rural southeastern Ohio to California as the last of society crumbles.

What and who do you bring with you and how long do they stay on your journey?