There's just something about the way Catherynne M. Valente writes that I can never get over. It's like nothing else I've ever read, and I love that about her books. This one was no exception. I didn't even realize this was a cli-fi dystopia when I picked it up.

What a quirky, wonderful book! I often recommend this to people looking for something different that speaks to climate change. This is a must read for everyone.

(i received this e-arc from netgalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.)

this book is yet another reason as to why i'll read Catherynne M Valente's grocery list if she ever releases it.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for giving me a free advanced copy of this book to read and review.

This is a wild one. Equal parts terrifying, mystifying and heartwarming. A look into a terrifying future while putting a spotlight on today, as well as hopeful because people will always do what they must to survive and find happiness in it.
Full review on YouTube.

This was such an incredibly creative and packed story for just 150 pages. I couldn't believe how much was covered in the short span of pages.

The story follows Tetley, the most popular person in Garbagetown but not for the right reasons. She lives in a post-apocalyptic world where the earth has been flooded and 100% ocean. Everyone that survived now lives on boats and barges and floating islands of garbage. The world building here is incredible. From the junk humans leave behind, Catherynne Valente creates a world made of trash where all its citizens hope for the day the earth shares a bit of its dry land for them to live on.

The world lacks all modern conveniences including a government, an educational system, bureaucracy, and any form of community. People just live with what they can get, foraging for food among the trash, making use of what they can find in a world with very little electricity. Because it's been hundreds of years since the end of the world itself, the humans have created their own traditions and history, which reminded me so much of Mad Max. Humans aren't named when they're born. Instead, they journey across Garbagetown and a random stranger names them depending on a piece of garbage they come by. Tetley is named after the brand of tea. Her partner is Goodnight Moon. Her best friend is Big Red Mars, etc, etc. It's truly such a stunning use of creativity and one of the major components of why I continued to read the book.

A big part of this story is about hope; hope that there's land somewhere on the endless blue. Hope that humans can live the way they used to before the "fuckwits" destroyed it all. It seems like hope is all these people have, so for Tetley to ruin that truth is to mess with the delicate balance of sanity everyone on the planet holds. Tetley believes in something else; that there will never be a place better than Garbagetown and it's a waste of time to hope for something that doesn't exist. Of course, her truth gets her into a bit of trouble.

Tetley was such an interesting character. I loved that she didn't have the same kind of hope that the other humans had. She believed that this was it and her perspective allows for her to enjoy the situation they all find themselves in rather than see it as a temporary fix to a hopeful future. There's something blissful about that, as if you've reached a state of nirvana and instead of living each day pretending that this is just temporary, she's accepted it and sees the world entirely different because of it. What I also loved about this book is how Tetley is written. At first, she's 10 years old and she's optimistic and fun. As the book goes on (and spans across 20 years of her life), you see how Tetley matures and grows, but still remains the same person she was when she was a kid. I truly loved that about Tetley and how time can go on and she's just here enjoying it.

I think I could go on forever writing about this book. I would highly recommend reading it because I don't want to end up spoiling too much, but there's so many other things that happen. Not only does it have strong themes of climate change and global warming, but it also has a lot of humanity to it as well. It comes in many different ways throughout the story, meeting Tetley at the crux of her childhood and the events that follow. While you can get mad at how the state of the world becomes, it also kind of tells us that sometimes a change of perspective is all you need.

Includes the novella Future is Blue. Set on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, where humans live in the future.

Valente's writing just isn't for me and I think I need to accept that. This is the third book by her I've tried and the only reason I was able to finish this one was because I picked up the audiobook. The audiobook was very well done and I got through it very quickly, but it was still difficult to get through. Mostly because of how very grim this book was.

Tetley lives on a patch of large drifting garbage (called Garbagetown) in an endless ocean. All the land has been swallowed up and things are bleak in this not far-off future. But Tetley is optimistic and bright, no matter what happens to her. But I hate what is implied to have happened to her. I hate what we ARE showed happens to her.

This is definitely not a book to go into if you're not in a good state of mind. And so while I liked the audiobook and thought there were some really good parts to this, overall though it definitely isn't a book I'll be revisiting.

2.5 stars

Enjoyable if ultimately slight; I like Valente's work but this felt minor in her oeuvre. I liked the attempt to look at a post-climate-change Earth that felt different from what I'm used to, but pinging around short fiction in that world didn't quite feel book-worthy to me.

In the future, there is a place on Earth called Garbagetown. Tetley Abednego lives there, and she has made a lot of people very angry.
If you're familiar with Catherynne Valente, you already know this story is going to twist your brain into knots. If you're unfamiliar with the author's style, please be aware - your brain will be twisted into knots. This is the wildest dystopia I have ever read, and I'm not sure I would recommend it to a general population. However, for the very adventurous reader who doesn't need a lot of hand-holding, buckle up! This is the most fun you'll have while trying to figure out what's actually going on.

In this ecodisaster future, warming temperatures and melted ice have resulted in a global ocean, devoid of solid land. Humans have survived on floating islands of garbage, arranged during The Great Sorting into various types. The island called Garbagetown has a district of electronic parts, Electric City one of expired prescription drugs, and so forth. The unwanted scraps of civilization provide a life that is at once filled with hope and despair. Their patron saint is St. Oscar the Grouch.

With a lot of jumping around in time, we follow Tetley Abednego from an earnest teenager to an adult universally reviled among the inhabitants of Garbagetown, although we don’t learn what her crime is until very much later. Any person is allowed to insult or physically assault her, short of killing her, on a whim, and all she is allowed to say is, “Thank you for my correction.” Her romance with Goodnight Moon leads to the revelation of a desperate scheme that will either bring the inhabitants of Garbagetown to dry land or destroy their future forever. Added to that, a strange device discovered in the mounds of discards comes to life with equally unexpected results.

Valente’s imagination never fails to bring to life worlds and peoples that are both fantastical and touchingly familiar. Despite the warning of a world in which melted ice has swelled the endless oceans, her characters embody hope and the human capacity to find joy and love even in the most depressing times. On the other hand, I had difficulty with the casual cruelty of Garbagetown inhabitants toward Tetley, especially before I had the context to understand the impact of what she had done. The jumping around in time confused me in places. But these objections pale beside the entirety of the story: endlessly inventive, often humorous, occasionally tragic, always hopeful.

If you love Candide and enjoy more tongue-and-cheek satire, check out this title. I enjoyed every aspect of this read and the cover is absolutely stunning. The worldbuilding surprised me and left me hoping the author would write a longer story set in the same world. Perfect read for a rainy Saturday stuck inside. 5/5 Stars

(Rounded up to 4.5 stars)

I loved the concept of this book. It was interesting to think about a post-apocalyptic world, how people might live, and to see something beyond "climate change will end it all!" Tetley is an engaging character, and I thoroughly enjoyed her point of view, her dry wit, and the fact that she's so grounded about her actual reality even if she makes a dedicated choice to be an optimist.

I had two main objections that knocked the rating down half a star from a full five. The first was that I felt like there was so much more to this world that I wanted to know. I had a lot of questions about how the world got into such a horrible state. Yes, it was climate change, but it would have been entertaining, to say the least, to watch the slow decline of the world into the state where Tetley is born and lives.

The second was the level of profanity. On a writing level, I understood the need for it, the point it made, and that, to a certain degree, Tetley used what was most appropriate to describe the "privileged" class. As a reader, it bothered me to read the f-word so many times. I wish the author had come up with some alternative. Yes, I understood the choice; I wish it was a different one.

I absolutely adored the world building, and in some places the writing absolutely shines on a narrative level. The comparisons, the observations, the sharp wit -- it was all aces for me. Also, the twist at the end made me grin. It was a clever move and I could definitely appreciate both as an author and as a reader.

A lot of people are talking about climate fiction these days. This one is definitely worth a read and a high mention in the genre.

Brilliantly written, but weird and depressing. There’s an important message about the destruction of our Earth and our depreciation of human life but I didn’t really enjoy my time in the story. It will leave you with a sense of unease, which I’m sure is the author’s intention. So while this may not be a highly rated read for me, I’m sure it will be for many others.

I've read and enjoyed several of Catherynne M. Valente's novels, my favorite being Deathless, but I really struggled with The Past Is Red. I think the style of the writing didn't work for me this time around. It felt jumbled to me, and I had difficulty making sense of what was happening. The premise was interesting, I liked the post-apocalyptic world that Valente created here, and I enjoyed Tetley as a character, but I struggled to read more than one chapter at a time with this novella. I may try to re-read this one at some point, but in the meantime, I look forward to Valente's next book.

Catherynne M. Valente's The Past Is Red is an engrossing read. I enjoyed every aspect of it, including the characters.

Normally once you've read one of an author's books, you have a pretty decent idea of what to expect from the next ones. It is very rare for an author to be in the 1-3 side of a bracket for one book and then the 3-5 bracket for another. Valente is one of the very few authors I have read that I have both 5 and 1 star reviews for.

She has written some of my all time favorite pieces and some of the worst things I have ever been unfortunate enough to come across. However, I can't say that this is a criticism of her. She is an extremely experimental author and when you are so open to new ideas and styles, its unreasonable to expect that every single one is going to be a hit.

For me, this was a miss. It is a first-person, stream of conscious, South Park style satire that I could not connect with. It was honestly one of the hardest books to not zone out on practically the moment I opened it and felt like a slough from page one.

While this is the 2nd book this year that I cannot recommend of Valente's, I still feel comfortable recommending her as an author. This is a miss, but Six-Gun Snow White, Deathless, and Radiance certainly are not.

I am a huge fan of Catherynne M. Valente's writing style and this book did not dissappoint. I haven't read the short story that this book was made from, but I didn't feel like I missed anythinig. It was definitely a unique world that we were brought into as readers and despite the sad circumstances of the main character, I fell in love with her upbeat outlook at life. I will be recommending this book to my patrons.

I really enjoyed this novella. The character voice was very strong, and even in the midst of a lot of terrible stuff, she managed to be hopeful. I liked the function lists played, and the way the story turned new eyes on trash and consumerism. For fans of Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers or Carpe Glitter by Cat Rambo.

The Past is Red is both a post apocalyptic and a coming of age story.

The world as we knew it is gone, there is nothing but blue ocean and garbage. . We didn't listen, we just wasted and abused until there was nothing left. The fu*kwits who just waste and waste, destroying everything, using up all the Earths recourses.

And Tetley our mc, is one of the many humans that living their life in Garbagetown, she's never known and other way. She was born a few generations after the world went to hell.

She's alone and every day she get's belittled, cursed at, beat and she has to take it. It's the law, she did something that no one can forgive, she took away their hope. She doesn't see it that way because Garbagetown is the most beautiful place on Earth.

This be it small packs a punch. I felt as if I had a lump in my throat the whole time reading it. Climate change is happening, we are using up the worlds resources. We are killing the planet daily. This heartbreaking and I just don't understand why people just seem to not care, or chose to ignore it.

Wonderfully written, full of emotion.

Thank you to Macmillan-Tor/Forge, Tordotcom for my copy.

Originally posted on I Can Has Books?