4.5 stars

Pro:
* Boyle’s prose has the most perfect flow. There is nothing forced or overwritten about it.
* Eco-discussion without losing the storyline and becoming didactic
* Realistic blend of humor and tragedy and poignancy
* Manages the current trend of multiple points of view brilliantly
* Excellent audiobook narration

Con:
* Well, bugs and snakes ;)
* Current trend of multiple points of view
* Bogs down a bit in the final 25%

Thank you to T. C. Boyle, Alyssa Bresnahan, Liveright, RB Media, and NetGalley for an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was such an interesting book. When Cat impulsively bought herself a snake at the very beginning, I questioned where the story was going (but in a good way!). I enjoyed the dark satire and relaxed tone that was present on each page. Even though the characters didn't always make the best decisions, I enjoyed finding out what events their actions would trigger. I also appreciated the environmental aspect; I hadn't ever considered turning to bugs as a sustainable food alternative, but this book certainly put that into my head.

The audio for this book was well done. At first, I thought that narrator for the story sounded a little older than I expected, but I quickly got used to it.

Boyle is new to me, but I realized from the first few minutes that I would love the audiobook of Blue Skies. Alyssa Bresnahan beautifully narrates this deeply moving and darkly humorous story of a family struggling through the extremes of climate change and personal tragedy. I always appreciate a narrator who makes each character distinct without distracting accents or melodramatic acting.

Given the current state of our planet, this should be enthralling. Instead it's incredibly boring. It's just a series of loosely connected events that aren't all that thrilling or engaging. I didn't really care about the characters or even the troubles they were facing with the change to climates.

3.5 stars

Boyle's works often feel very accessible: relatively spare language, relatable environments, and flawed characters who are known to readers because they so closely resemble an actual person in their lives...or a person they (hopefully long ago) were. The twist here is that this easy connection makes this book extra sinister. Though this is a dystopian, semi-futuristic depiction, it doesn't feel far enough away. In the same way that social horror is pretty much on par with a regular ol' day in modern times, this world feels very, VERY close.

This novel centers on a family that grapples with each other and with themselves, but most interestingly, their interactions with their environments are so prominent. Fans of ecocritical approaches and those who are drawn to cli fi will find what they are looking for here: a series of outcomes inextricably linked to nature and the ways in which it has been altered by people (to their own detriment). I think about my own relationship to the environment constantly and have made major life changes and choices as a result that focus, so it was a little too easy to connect with some of the human/animal strife, weather-related struggles (I listened to this over two days and it both rained and was so hot that I had to turn on the AC for the first time this year within the short space of the listen), and sinister considerations about the future of people in this space.

These characters go through some pretty horrifying experiences that I'll omit to stay spoiler-free, but prospective readers should be in the right headspace to deal with some challenging circumstances and too-real horrors before they crack this one: a double-edged sword of relatable content, to be sure.