Published by Atria Books on August 15, 2023

This will be a mixed review, but the positives outweigh the negatives. At its best, the novel illustrates the desperate measures that Americans will need to take to survive global warming after the climate reaches a tipping point.

The story’s most interesting and dramatic moments come from flashbacks to the way communities responded to the Crisis. Coastal cities are flooded, the Everglades are underwater, hurricanes have devastated the Gulf states, forests are constantly burning, the South is too hot to inhabit. Voters who have had enough elect politicians who begin the Great Transition. Serious efforts are finally made to eliminate carbon emissions after workers are organized into Corps that labor to protect the nation from fires and flooding while cleaning up the mess. Presumably the climate change deniers decided to stop fighting progress at some point along the way.

The new politicians, like the old, favor the interests of the wealthy — the people whose greed caused the Crisis — by assuring that they receive more protection and benefits than everyone else. A people’s revolution ultimately causes the Transition workers, spurred by Phoenix Company, to go on strike and then to organize self-governing worker cooperatives, making decisions that are best for everyone, not just for the ruling class. All of this is more interesting than the story that unfolds in the present.

As the novel begins, the Crisis is abating. The Transition ended sixteen years earlier. The new challenge is to restore prairies, rivers, woodlands, and other ecosystems so that wildlife will have habitats that will allow species to multiply.

Those who knowingly profited from carbon emissions have been branded as “climate criminals” but they have never been punished. Members of a group known as the Furies, an apparent offshoot of Phoenix Company, are hunting and assassinating climate criminals. There are obvious parallels between the American ruling class after the Crisis and the aristocracy after the French Revolution. The novel’s moral theme asks whether retributive justice — assassination as vengeance, with no formal charges or opportunity to present a defense — is actually justice. Apart from moral issues, the characters learn that, in practice, vengeance triggers retaliation.

The protagonists are a husband and wife (Larch and Kristina) and their daughter Emi. Kristina and Larch worked to facilitate the Great Transition. They met while fighting a fire to save at least some of Yosemite. Kristina became the face of Phoenix Company. Larch was in a reality TV show featuring members of the Forest Corps. Now he works for a WNBA team.

Emi views her mother as a hero while others view her as a criminal. A terrorist attack on Zero Day (celebrating the net-zero emissions anniversary) nearly kills Larch and Emi. Why the Furies would want to place people at risk who are celebrating environmentalism is unclear.

Kristina calls to warn Larch just before the attack, but how did Kristina (who is supposedly in a different state on a volunteer mission) know the attack was coming? Two agents from Public Security soon arrive to question Larch and Emi, but are they really from Public Security? Is Kristina innocent or a terrorist? Clearly she isn’t anywhere in between, because the characters have little nuance.

When Kristina doesn’t respond to messages, Larch and Emi go looking for her. Most of the adventure/action in the plot concerns the attempt Larch and Emi make to locate Kristina while evading the authorities (or whomever). Nick Fuller Googins mixes in a large dose of domestic drama as Kristina and Larch argue about the impact their political/lifestyle beliefs have upon their family obligations. Both characters are a bit self-righteous, as people tend to be when they quarrel about domestic or political issues. Unfortunately, the arguments seem like constructs to advance the plot rather than actual disputes between marital partners. Their parenting quarrels (“I taught her to be strong” vs “I let her be a normal kid”) become tedious. I suppose readers can decide which parent they like better, or which parenting philosophy they would follow, but neither parent is a great role model.

Emi is a convincing teenager, in that she is smug in her beliefs, doesn’t listen to adults, and is certain of her entitlement. Despite her questionable taste, she considers herself the goddess of rock (mostly pop) history, which she apparently regards as having started in the 90s.

Tearful moments of family reconciliation/resolution are artificial. Call me unsentimental, but some of the “we all still love each other” scenes are just too gooey for my taste. The final resolution of the family dynamic and Kristina’s precarious situation is a cop-out.

Firefighting scenes are exciting. The revolutionary solution to the Crisis is intriguing. The rest of the novel is best seen as a forgettable excuse to delve into a fascinating backstory.

RECOMMENDED

4-1/2 stars for a fascinating, terrifying, and ultimately hopeful glimpse at the future of Earth after climate change has reached an acute crisis point, and finally people begin to come together to save themselves and the only home we have. Good character development, and a very well-developed post-Transition world. My only quibble is the author's invention of terminology with insufficient (or long delayed) explanation of its meaning.

Though I don't expect to live long enough to see this sort of transition come to fruition, this novel almost makes me wish I could.

Unfortunately The Great Transition did not work for me. The premise was excellent, and the descriptions of the "Transition Times" really held my interest. The novel alternates voice from Emi, the daughter of Larch and Kristina Vargas, and her father, Larch. Emi feels she does not measure up to her mother's expectations, and there is definitely conflict within this family about the climate crisis, and what can be done to stop it. For me, the mother Kristina was just too militant, and her secrecy and lack of concern about how her actions would affect her family just ruined this book for me. A promising premise, but I did not like the "executions" and the rationalization of Kristina.

This is climate fiction. No question, we are deep within the flood waters of the end of earth as we start this novel. But it doesn’t stay there. What is most interesting about the climate fiction portion of this book is how much time is spent after the world get to talk together. That is something very new that I noticed in this novel. And in some ways, it’s very helpful, this idea that maybe we could actually get to a place where we had net zero emissions, and where we were healing, our planet. But the great transition let us know that, as before, the world ended, not everyone can get on the same page. And the nuanced way that this novel deals with this issue is just one of the many ways that it succeeds.

What you really need to know about this novel is that it is equally climate fiction, and a family drama. Because the story of Larch and Kristina and their daughter Emmy is really the heart and soul of this book. We get the story of how Larch and Kristina met and then we also get to see their marriage through their eyes as well as through their 15-year-old daughter‘s eyes. And this is a "warts and all" view of middle marriage. We can fall in love with somebody and realize 15 years later that the version of them we fell in love with, is not the person we’re living with anymore. But that doesn’t mean we don’t love this version too. It’s very nuanced.

And that really is what I’m taking away from this book is that somehow this debut author has managed to bring us a story of our world exactly as it is right now. Marriage as it is right now, parenting as we experience it right now, the feeling that the world is ending and yet might possibly be able to be saved, the feeling that no matter how present a crisis, we can’t all get on board with one way to solve it. It’s full of the best in the very worst of humanity, and I absolutely loved it.

What a book! I think this one is going to stay with me for a while. The title seems to be a bit of a misnomer, because the present in this book is actually after The Great Transition, but much of it flashes back to describe life during The Transition itself. Basically the world has had a massive climate crisis, and The Transition is what has allowed life to continue to exist on Earth. The population now celebrates Day Zero, the day the world reached zero emissions. The small family of Emi, Larch, and Kristina are the main characters and the book switches between Larch's point of view and Emi's. The book is a thriller in the present tense, with assassinations and kidnappings, but the flashbacks tell the story of struggle, suffering, and falling in love during The Transition. It's an interesting dichotomy, and while you may have a hard time initially getting into it (like I did) I promise if you stick with it you will not be able to put it down towards the end. It's gripping and will make you consider a lot of things about your own life and the way we live as a society.

Pub date: 8/15/23
Genre: climate fiction
Quick summary: Emi's parents Larch and Kristina fell in love during The Great Transition, helping the world rebuild after the climate crisis. When Kristina disappears as a suspect in the death of multiple climate criminals, teenaged Emi and Larch will search for her and the truth.

As we deal with the effects of climate change, speculative climate fiction is becoming an exciting subgenre. I really liked how Fuller Googins showed us this post-crisis world through Emi and Larch's eyes. Both brought different but compelling perspectives as they tried to figure out how to move forward. Kristina was present in the narrative as well through Emi's interviews with her for a school project and the flashbacks to her love story with Larch. This book is more character-driven than plot-driven, which I didn't expect when I first started reading, but it worked for me! I will keep an eye out for more from this author.

Thank you to Atria Books and Thoughts From a Page for providing an e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

"The Great Transition" by Nick Fuller Googins is a Speculative and Dystopian Fiction Story!

"The Great Transition" was a 'rag-tag' global movement that inspired the world to save the planet from going under due to climate change. The post-Transition is considered to be utopian-like compared to past generations.

Emi Vargas was born post-Transition, her parents, Kristina and Larch, were both instrumental in building the new society. Now a teenager, they tell her often how lucky she is to have been born after the climate crisis but Emi doesn't know life any other way.

Suddenly chaotic occurrences takes place concerning climate criminals and Kristina mysteriously goes missing. Emi begins to wonder how safe her life really is in this utopian-like society...

"The Great Transition" is this author's debut novel and I was hoping for more of a connection with the story, as Speculative and Dystopian Fiction are favorite genres for me.

My preference is always a character-driven story and what I found was primarily plot-driven.

Getting to know the Vargas family was difficult as not much was offered with the exception of conflict.

Connecting with the secondary characters was tough as none were likable or relatable.

There was a great deal of focus on the backstory, which I enjoyed, but little substance in the current timeline. There was a lot of telling and talking about climate change, and honestly, it felt over-the-top.

"The Great Transition" has a creative premise with loads of potential and I enjoyed the author's writing style. I'm glad to see the many positive reviews and ratings for this debut novel. Sadly, I was looking for a better connection to the story overall.

2.75⭐rounded up for the premise!

Thank you to NetGalley, Atria Books, and Nick Fuller Googins for an DRC of this book. It has been an honor to give my honest and voluntary review.

OMG! It was definitely speculative based fiction based on the events of global warming/climate crisis and the aftermath. It is nice to see that the planet CAN ACHIEVE "0 emissions," but at hefty cost and war. I love the dual timelines between Larch and Emi. The whe whole book was frightening AF because the topic of worldwide climate crisis is a very real issue for everyone.

Emi was born after the climate crisis and "Great Transition" and she has to go to school and these celebrations to learn about what happened. Her mom, who goes missing is still very much involved with the aftermath of the transition and it has put a strain on her parent's relationship. I like that Emi has to chose if she wants to embrace her parent's past or live without acknowleding what has happened. She has to make a choice about how she will be involved.

I have been waiting to read another good dystopian read since the Divergent series and this more than satisfies my approval. It was believable and relatable and the plot was great and original. I loved it and will definitely purchase this for myself.

Highly recommended.

Thanks to NetGalley, Nick Fuller Googins and Atria Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Already available.

I was really excited to get my hands on The Great Transition, but unfortunately for me it fell short of my (admittedly high) expectations.

The book started of interestingly enough, but at about 1/3 of the way in, still nothing had really happened. It's not just that the pacing is slow, but rather that with alternating POVs as well as different timelines, it feels incredibly disjointed. I am sure blurring the lines between dialogue, description, past and present was done intentionally as a stylistic choice, as was the lack of quotation marks, but it just didn't work for me. It took me too long to figure out who said what when and where.
I figured switching to the audio format would help, as different narrators were used for the different POVs, but still orienting myself in time and place was difficult and distracting. Or rather, it would have been distracting from the story, if there had been a cohesive one. However, the plot in the current timeline seemed to take a backseat to talking about the time of The Great Transition, which surely was interesting, but felt like a separate book within the book. I was also not a fan of the Highschool interview project and the teacher feedback, especially on audio it sounded incredibly clunky. Furthermore I am not sure why we added an eating disorder subplot. I could have done without it and didn't feel like it added to the narrative, but maybe the point went over my head. In the 3rd act the book suddenly changed course. What originally read like a dystopian future historical fiction novel ( I know that's not a genre, but that's the best description I can give) full of long winded descriptions, suddenly remembered it wanted to be a thriller all along and things got rushed.
The book felt like a literary Russian doll, a narrative within a narrative within a narrative. Surely an ambitious project, but sometimes trying to do too much accomplishes too little in the end.

THE GREAT TRANSITION by Nick Fuller Googins is a thoughtful debut novel set in the near future which looks at the impact of climate change on society and on family dynamics. Narration duties are shared by 15-year-old Emiliana (Emi) and her father, Larch. He and Emi's Mom (Kristina) were involved in volunteer grassroot efforts to mitigate climate change almost two decades ago, deconstructing some neighborhoods and saving others. Larch casually references the social dichotomy of the time: "London and Sydney and Seattle and everywhere we later learned: enough empty investment units to house the world's climate refugees twice over." Kristina seems fairly radicalized, a rebel who had a tough life growing up in camps. That's another place where Googins' writing shines; it's rather painful to read Kristina's account of those times: "Picture a bus filled with crying families driving into the dark desert. The adults knew what was happening. My mother knew. She wrote a number on my arm in eye liner. Kids aren't dumb. We could hear the adults crying. Praying. My grandmother smothering us in kisses." Emi provides some of that historical backstory due to excerpts from interviews for a high school paper. She loves music, especially oldies, but seems rather naïve and sheltered, and deals with food avoidance, preferring to be hungry so as to have a point of focus. Her thoughts ("riding a wave of my hunger has always rewarded me with a clean light headedness") could be triggering for some. Sadly, despite their circumstances, none of the main characters spark much empathy.

This was well written, thought-provoking, political and thrilling. Overall, it was a very good book. The story really hooked me because with the current course the world is on right now, it all just seemed so possible. It's terrifying to think what the future could hold if we don't start looking after our planet better.

I liked the characters and their stories and the parent/child relationships. I enjoyed reading about the different aspects and effects of the different parenting styles of each parent.

I received a copy of this book through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I read about 50% and this one just DRAGGED for me. I liked the present day, and I liked her transcripts with her mom, but much of her Dad's flashbacks felt very slow. Ultimately not for me.

The Great Transition is Nick Fuller Goggins debut cli-fi novel set in a not so distant post-climate change world. Earth’s landscape has been devasted by storms, flooding, droughts and wildfires. It was only through the efforts of a massive deployment of volunteers that there is anything left to claim as habitable. 15 year old Emiliana Vargas is the daughter of two climate heroes, Larch and Kristina, who were part of The Great Transition movement. For Kristina, the crisis is never over. She never tires of telling Emi how lucky she is and must always be prepared for the worse. It is Kristina’s opinion that they should be working twice as hard to ensure it never happens again. On Day Zero, celebrating the success of The Great Transition, climate criminals are assassinated and Kristina suspiciously goes missing.

The story is told in alternating chapters voiced by Emi, Larch and Kristina. Through their different perspectives we learn about events during the years of the Great Transition and present day struggles. I liked learning, along with Emi, about Kristina and her history through a school project Emi is working on. We witness this small family strive to love and protect one another and attempt to reclaim a place to call home. The novel’s structure also worked for me in the way it moved between day to day existence and big ideas about how our actions today determine our future fate. This cautionary tale was somewhat frightening to read as it verges on prophetic in its portrayal of an imaginable future.

I hesitate to label The Great Transition as YA as some readers might hesitate to pick it up. Believe me when I say that it is an engaging novel for readers of all ages. I recommend this book to lovers of speculative fiction, cli-fi or eco-fiction.


Many thanks to the author @NickFullerGoggins, @AtriaBooks and @NetGalley for the pleasure of reading this eARC in exchange for an honest review!

With climate change ravaging the world with wildfires, flooding and migration, the planet is less and less comfortable for its human population. Amazingly, humans gather together to save it on a global scale, sacrificing and struggling to survive. Good character development and enough plot twists to keep you reading deep into the night, heartily recommended.

What a great, standout debut about an author that takes climate fiction close to reality! The book centers around a family after 15-20 years of fighting back to save Earth from climate destruction and the choices people make for justice. Specifically around Emi, a 15yo girl growing up after The Great Transition and what it’s like to be the generation after a worldwide trauma. Secrets, family drama and espionage- all woven together to create an adventures and suspenseful novel.

Given how much I enjoyed dipping back into a little sci-fi earlier this year (with The Ferryman) and all of the buzz around this book, I had to put in a request. And I’m so glad I did, this was an impressive debut.
Cli-Fi is not for the faint of heart these days, and this book was no exception. Especially while heading into wildfire season here in the Pacific Northwest, and seeing fires affect the rest of the country earlier this summer, it’s mildly terrifying, though ultimately hopeful (if we could just figure out a way to value people over corporate profits).
The author makes excellent use of each character to explore the different political facets of climate change: the cynical and extremist mother, the optimistic and hopeful father, and the daughter taking it all in to forge a path forward of her own. At times the missives from her mother, illustrated through interviews for a school report, become a little repetitive and didactic. But it was a clever storytelling device - provocative and illustrating how the ‘Transition’ came about.
This is an excellent mash up of genres: thriller, sci-fi, dystopian, and family drama. The ending felt somewhat open ended, so I am curious (and hopeful) to see if there will be a follow up!

The Great Transition is the kind of hopeful climate fiction needed today. So many climate activists present the climate crisis as an extinction event, prompting despair and a nihilistic acceptance of what’s to come. It’s also unlikely. What is more likely is the future of The Great Transition where many die in weather events triggered by climate change or of privation in refugee camps. A significant remnant of people remain and commit to building a new society in the areas not destroyed by flooding. In this future, people embrace a more egalitarian society though many of the climate criminals remain alive and trying to claw back into power. Moving between the novel's present - more than 100 years in our future - and the events leading up to that present, we meet a family still suffering from their experiences as the responsible corporate criminals were called to account. This is an impressive first novel that deserves to be widely read.

Wow, this was quite a novel. If you like climate fiction, you will LOVE this. The world he created is eerie and sadly, seems realistic. It's about 100-150 years in the future and our Earth is not the same. The polar ice caps ahem melted so much that parts of the world are unlivable, but people have banded together (the Great Transition) and are trying to fix things. They have achieved zero-emissions, and are committed to make the world even better for all people. The story is told through different perspectives of a family dealing with this world-an idealistic mother going "rogue" with her group, a father just trying to keep his family together and raise their daughter to have a happier life than he and his wife had, and a young teen learning about what her parents went through during the Great Transition. It seems like a long book, and there even is a thriller-ish section that starts about 60% in. I prefer my endings wrapped up neater than the author does with this one, but I still recommend this. I know I'll be thinking about it for a long time to come!

Thanks to Atria Books and NetGalley for this digital ARC of Nick Fuller Googins' 'The Great Transition.'

I read Stephen Markley's 'The Deluge' earlier in the year and this novel has many of the same themes.

Although lighter in tone (and weight!) there's a sense of optimism that although we're faced with severe climate change and its consequences, at some point the world will come to its senses and do the right thing. It may happen too late to save everything or everyone but, better late than never. Astonishing works of technology and engineering are devised and completed in record time and with global cooperation. Similarly in both novels, one of the main protagonists is an unbending woman who'll sacrifice everything to the cause. I did like in this one that, although the world came together to deal with the crisis, corporate and human nature didn't take long to reassert itself and try to roll back the measures taken - for reasons of convenience and greed.

The story is told from the alternating perspective of Larch and his daughter, Emi, and encapsulates their present day and past stories as well as that of their wife/mother Kristina. Kristina and Larch are heroes of the Great Transition - the period of activism that saw the world reset its environmental priorities. We learn a lot of key information about the parents and the project through the device of Emi's school project which is sprinkled throughout the novel between chapters.

It's an enjoyable novel but will, I think, be compared to the colossal 'The Deluge' and may suffer in that comparison.

This novel about the near-future is so uncomfortably realistic. Our world following massive climate disaster looks a lot like we might expect, in one sense: teenage daughters are still strangers to their mothers, couples still struggle to connect, work is difficult to balance with life at home. This is all especially true for Kristina, a hero of “the Transition” to a net-zero emissions world, her husband Larch, and their daughter, Emi. But this family’s world also gives us an unforgiving look into our future: humanity has abandoned half the earth, living underground, and nearly everyone is expected to volunteer for reclamation work. Even vacations are devoted to an effort to “undo” the damage to our world. Emi’s world is a complicated one, and she grapples with complicated questions: how many “good deeds” are enough? Is it selfish to put family first - or cowardly? How much does one generation owe to the next, or to the one before it?

I enjoyed this book a lot. It is a great addition to the growing “cli-fi” genre - one I find so challenging and interesting. I struggled a little bit with the choppiness of Larch’s voice, but the plot was well-paced, and the epistolary use of Emi’s school project was fantastic. Thank you so much for allowing me to read this book - I thoroughly enjoyed it.