Thank you to St. Martin's Press | Wednesday Books and NetGalley for an electronic advanced readers copy of this novel.

Thea and her family have recently moved to Colorado after a flood ruins their rental place in Ohio. Based on her father's dream, they live off the grid without electricity and without technology. Her dad turns into a control freak, forbidding Thea and her sister from going to school and even stops them from going to the library so they don't get "ideas". Thea is hard of hearing and has always felt different. This all changes when she meets Ray through work, a boy her age who is also hard of hearing. She starts to build a community of friends outside of her family and is worried about getting caught.

Dust by Alison Stine is a sobering tale of severe climate change where water is sparse and people are struggling to get by. Well written and interesting, I really enjoyed reading about Thea and her quest to find out who she is.

Deftly weaving together climate change and coming-of-age, Dust is a great entry in teen litfic novels. Stine's writing is clear and concise, leaving room for Thea's shifting emotions as she realizes more and more about just what her family moving out to Colorado means for her. While her father has done more and more to cut her off from the community, it backfires in a sense as coming to an isolated town results in a tight-knit community used to taking care of each other when the government and corporations let them slip through the cracks. This extends to all aspects of the social strata, but in Thea's particular case, to her identity as a Deaf teen who was always pressured to pass for hearing. As she learns more about the world she's been cut off from, she learns the importance of people taking care of each other, an increasingly vital message in both her town and for readers in a world determined to create divisions.

Dust is the compelling and unputdownable latest from Alison Stine. I was completely swept away by this tale of a girl whose family has decided to go off the grid. Thea is heartbroken when her father moves their family from Ohio to Colorado. Her dad wants to keep the family safe, even when there doesn’t seem to be any danger. Thea is hard of hearing, but her father is determined to ignore it. Thea often misses words when someone is on her “deaf side” or they turn away and she can’t see their lips. As strange weather haunts their town, with swaths of dust sweeping over them, Thea tries to find connection in the town. Can her family survive when a dust storm threatens everything they have?

Dust is a well-written and important story. Alison Stine brings up real concerns about climate change and the potential for environmental disaster if changes are not made. I loved how she handled Thea’s deafness and how her difficulty with hearing was portrayed. When Thea doesn’t hear a word, a blank space is left. I thought this was so clever because it really helps readers take on Thea’s point of view. Even though we can make a guess for what word fills the gap, we won’t know exactly which word was used. Thea is stuck in between the hearing world and the Deaf world, with a foot in both and neither. Stine portrayed this so well and with deep care. I was so happy when Thea met Ray and was exposed to someone who used sign language and who could relate to her. Thea’s bond with her little sister Amelia was also very special. As their father’s ideas get stricter, the two of them rely on each other.

Dust is a book that will stay with me long after the final page. Stine writes so atmospherically about the dust and unforgiving heat. The dust finds its way into everything, from a coffee cup to lungs. The dust goes from innocent and easily brushed away to something that is life threatening. I loved how the townspeople banded together and always took care of each other. The library being a safe refuge and the librarian trying to sign everyone up for library cards was the best!

Readers who enjoy stories about strong heroines, community, and overcoming unforgiving environments will love Dust. Even readers who think this may not be their thing should give this a chance and let it sweep you away!

Thank you to Alison Stine, Wednesday Books, and Netgalley for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

For publisher: My review will be posted on Goodreads, Amazon, Storygraph, and Barnes & Noble etc.

Book Review
📖 Dust (#206)
3.75⭐️/ I liked it
Swipe for @goodreads synopsis

🌾 A YA coming of age tale set against the backdrop of climate change on the plains of Colorado. Thank you @wednesdaybooks for letting me get a sneak peek at this. It is our December 3rd.

🌾 Let me preface this by saying YA rarely works for me, so my issues with this are likely more ‘me’ than the book. I tried this one because the premise hooked me and I was very curious, mostly because I grew up on Colorado’s Eastern Plains.

🌾 I like this book, and I think there’s some real value to it, but I did not love it. Most of that reasoning has to do with the fact I was a little bored with it until about 80% in when it finally picks up and becomes action-packed and drama filled, with a fairly quick conflict resolution. I almost wish that scene would have come at the halfway mark, with more of a look at life after this moment.

🌾 Some more bonuses:
- well developed characters and conflict
- disability (deafness) rep
- climate change/ speculative elements

🌾 Overall, I did like this and I’m glad I read it. Do you think you’ll be checking this one out?

I just moved to inland southern California and the parallels to this book hit a little too close to home, not going to lie. Not that we're having insane dust storms, but apparently the existence of those is more an alternate history thing the author invented, according to her note at the end. Anyway, the setting got to me a bit, but I loved the little community and the character growth that everyone went through. The main character was so sad, but I enjoyed watching her come into her own, especially with accepting herself as a Deaf person. It was a sweet, if sometimes also quite stressful, story, with important themes about climate change as well.

ARC review; thanks to NetGalley for the access to this ebook. Pub date: December 3, 2024.

This story follows a half-deaf girl, Thea, whose life is upended by her parents, mainly her dad, who decides to take his children out of school and isolate them in every possible way because he wants to go back to a "simple life". It's called "Dust" because this world is ravaged by climate change and the family moves to a desolate town where it never rains, they only get dust storms that get progressively worse as the story goes along.

I'm not a half-deaf person, but the author is, and I think the representation in this book is great. I understood Thea's struggles even though I've never lived through them, and felt her isolation and frustration with her parents, especially her dad, who actively deny she has a hearing problem and do nothing to help her thrive with her disability. I felt very protective of her and loved the way she found community despite the roadblocks.

I don't think this book does a good job of representing homeschool and unschooling, though. I don't know much about these things, but I do know that they're not what was portrayed here. <spoiler> Of course, Thea's father was using homeschooling and unschooling to isolate his children, so I believe it was a form of punishment whether he was aware of it or not. He clearly didn't care about them getting an actual education, so he never cared about providing a valid homeschooling and unschooling experience. I felt that that should've been addressed in the text the same way other things are addressed. It's not a big issue for me, just something I noted. </spoiler>

Overall, the story was engaging and compelling, my eyes watered a few times because Thea's situation was sometimes so rough, and it had a good flow to it. I read it very quickly because it's well-written and interesting. That said, my only issue is that I didn't like the resolution. It was too quick and it felt rushed. Thea's dad does a full 180 and it just doesn't feel earned.

<spoiler> I understand that near-death situations lead to mindset changes, but the way he's left off the hook doesn't sit right with me. He was evil, in my opinion, for most of this book, and there's no atonement for the abuse he put his family through. Even if he thought he was doing the right thing, that doesn't excuse the abuse, and I don't appreciate that we just move on from that. </spoiler>

Other than that, I think this was great. It really worked for me.

Wow, this book came for my throat with the themes of belonging and breaking free. I will absolutely be reading more from Alison Stine in the future, and I highly recommend this. Take care while reading.

I received an ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Dust by Alison Stine is a first person-POV YA climate fiction alternative history exploring what could have happened if we hadn’t changed our farming practices after the Dust Bowl and what could be coming as climate change continues. Thea is a hard of hearing sixteen-year-old whose parents have isolated her further and further from her peers. She and her younger sister, Amelia, are forced into unschooling and have few friends and few ways to hear opinions that differ from their parents’ views. But when Thea meets Ray, another member of the deaf community her age, she starts to push back against her parents’ wishes.

As someone who was raised Conservative, I did and did not resonate with Thea’s story. Luckily, my parents didn’t prohibit me from reading certain books or doing research or disagreeing with them. Unschooling would never have happened in my house. But where I did resonate was watching in real time as your parents slip further and further into extremism and you’re too young to understand what exactly is going on, but you know it’s not good. The other part that I resonated with was finally having enough and starting to push back because you know that you deserve better, but you also know that it could have negative consequences.

One of the things I really loved was the formatting. Thea is deaf in one ear so she sometimes misses individual or several words at a time. Alison Stine immerses the reader into this experience by cutting words out with an underbar and the conversation simply continues. As Thea is sixteen, she’s had time to get used to having to think more about what she missed and how that might impact the whole sentence. It’s very isolating for Thea as she hides her disability from pretty much everyone due to pressure from her parents, but she also is missing information. It’s a simple but effective way to convey the frustration of going through life with missing snippets daily.

As a long time fan of The Last Unicorn film, I loved the references to it throughout the book. The opening epigraph being a direct quote about the Red Bull, the allegories, and even a character’s name were all little easter eggs that also helped set a scene of just what Thea’s parents allowed and their value on older things as the Last Unicorn is from 1982 and Dust is an alternative twenty-first century complete with cell phones and internet. The references are doing multiple things and I’m probably going to be thinking about them for a while.

I would recommend this to fans of YA speculative climate fiction, readers looking for books with themes of controlling parents, and those looking for a speculative YA with a main character who is hard of hearing

Dust is a slow build with a powerful finish! I found the beginning to be repetitive with its continuous reminders about why Thea is living in the desert and why she isn’t allowed out of the house. The plot is predictable with her getting a taste of how good it is to have friends and be outside of the house. The conflict and ending became faster paced; although, the story was predictable and wrapped up too nicely. The writing is gorgeous and the deaf representation added greatly to the story.

Dust. Dust is everywhere. It stops everything from growing. It stops people from seeing, hearing, and moving. It has made the small town of BloodlessValley desolate and lonely for newcomer Thea. There’s more dust coming and Thea knows it wants more than to just sprinkle the area, but to drown it in dust.

I will say that Alison Stine has made me want to read more about the storms of the 1930s because I do not remember reading about them in history, but I’m not from Ohio or Colorado. I did live on the East Coast though and a storm big enough to cover the Statue of Liberty is actually a pretty cool story to a kid.

I love reading the afterword in books because you get to check out what is real in a story and what isn’t. How the author blends historical fact with fiction. I was fascinated with the back story that Thea was learning and really wanted it to be true (chuckle) because it sounded like it could be true. This is one climate fiction book that I really got into and I don’t get into a lot of them, but this one rang true to me which is why it sucked me in.

Thea is awesome. I just drove across the country from the East Coast to the West and I felt her pain about the desert heat, the dust, and how much hotter the sun feels. It’s all true. I have years behind me to be able to compare it, but Thea is not wrong.

I love the town of Bloodless Valley and its inhabitants. I cannot say enough about this secondary cast. Each character brings something to the table as it usually does in a small town. How people band together to survive the normalness of the everyday and the urgency of survival.

I haven’t even addressed the family dysfunction part of Dust yet. (chuckle) As with real life, Thea has many personal fires to deal with at the same time. Stine gives us an amazing story of a young woman trying to discover how to function in a hearing world without knowing what tools she needs to survive. Dust is a must read.

Publishes December 3, 2024

Dust is a YA book with a variety of themes that would work well for a book club discussion or topic driven papers. Thea is born partially Deaf to a family who refuses to believe it, her dad has premonitions causing the family to, stockpile resources, relocate and go off grid outside a community dealing with the reprocussions of corporate farming and the destruction of commodities.

Out of desperation, Thea is allowed to get a job and she slowly builds community, friendships, and a light romance along with the gift of starting to learn ASL without her parents approval.

Being hard of hearing myself I was drawn to this book and to Thea as she navigates her world. I saw similarities to 'How To Survive Everything' (Ewan Morrison). And enjoyed learning the historical context to Black Sunday and dust storms of the past come with connections in modern day farming techniques in a climate changing world.

Dust is a coming-of-age story centered on Thea, a young girl growing up in a family increasingly fearful of outside influence. After Thea and her sister are pulled from school and expected to homeschool themselves, her family relocates from Ohio to a remote desert valley in Colorado. The move leaves them without resources or a support system, and with her father's farm failing to produce, Thea and her mother must find work in town to make ends meet.

Amid these challenges, Thea finds unexpected support in the local community, where she begins to flourish and discover what she truly wants out of life even if it diverges from her family's expectations.

While the pacing is a bit slow at the start, the tension builds steadily, especially towards the end. I found myself rooting for Thea and the townspeople, hoping that her father, a frustrating figure, would loosen his grip and let his daughters live more freely, with a voice in shaping their own futures.

I think that (no matter how much it freaks me out) we're going to start seeing a lot of vaguely dystopian books that revolve around the effects of climate change. I think it is a super interesting concept and an important way to use literature. However, this was less speculative dystopian and much more contemporary. Like genuinely, barely anything happened in this book. A weirdly large part of it was about how hard farming is? I liked the characters, and I think having a partly-deaf MC is great (and Theo is very likeable). But the plot was just non-existent to me. Maybe I'd like this more if I was more of a doomsday prepper? It was somehow so focused on prepping for total collapse but also had barely anything about the actual issues that were going to cause the collapse.
Really I think the description of this book does it kind of a disservice. The "premonition" is barely there and it really isn't all that speculative. It's a lovely story about coming of age and falling in love, but with a lot of weird stuff going on in the background that never goes anywhere.

Dust is a YA speculative fiction novel about a young half deaf girl who is uprooted from her home in Ohio to a desolate, dry, hot, and seemingly dying town in Colorado by her parents. Her parents refuse to acknowledge she struggles with hearing. They have become fearful of progress and have chosen to pull their children from school, deciding to live without help from the outside world, wanting to go back to “simpler” times. All the while, ignoring the strain that it’s putting on their family, on their daughters.

This is a very interesting story, I haven’t read one quite like it before. It was interesting to see parents refusing to acknowledge their daughters disability and to examine how that affected the main character and those around her. It was incredibly heartbreaking to watch the parents slowly break the spirits of their daughters because of the fear that they had. Fear had such a prominent role in this story and controlled the decisions the parents made throughout. It also caused the parents to technically abuse their children by denying them education and socialization. It definitely was difficult to read at times, but that did lead to some heartwarming moments when the main character was able to establish meaningful connections.

I really did struggle with the unschooling part of the story. To be clear, homeschooling, and unschooling are two incredibly different things, and to confuse the two, especially in this kind of format can be detrimental. I understand the point the author was trying to make with regards to fear, misinformation, and unschooling (which has become a trend recently) but several times throughout the story she used homeschooling and unschooling interchangeably, which is inaccurate and can cause a lot of confusion and spreads misinformation. And to be fair, what happened in this story couldn’t even be considered unschooling or homeschooling. It was a complete absence of schooling. Although at times, it was stated that the youngest daughter was getting taught, it was very obvious the oldest one wasn’t getting any education at all. What the author did was absolute misrepresentation and ruined the entire entire story for me as I was angry with the author for portraying both of these potentially legitimate, benign, and useful ways of teaching children in such an inaccurate and damaging light. What would’ve been more accurate and what would’ve been more beneficial to the story would’ve been to show how maybe the parents started off with wanting to homeschool or unschool and due to their fears decided to focus on no schooling. The author could have allowed the obviously intelligent main character to realize that her parents weren’t doing what they originally set out to do. The main character could have pointed out that if she wasn’t going to get homeschooled or unschooled properly, she would prefer to be in public school. Instead, the author chose, in a YA novel that will be read by a younger audience who is more likely less knowledgeable about other forms of schooling, to portray it is something abusive and terrifying.

***Thank you NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and Alison Stine for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.***

So, I was able to read this book because of a "Read Now" promotion happening on NetGalley. I read its description, loved the cover, and heard that it was written similar to many literary classics. I was definitely intrigued, to say the least, and I'm going to share and review my thoughts on Dust and all of its nuances. 

The first thing I want to mention is the writing style. With Thea being half deaf, she misses a lot of words in conversations. This is written in a way where random words in the sentences were replaced with ____. This made sense to me as a reader, but it took a long time for me to adjust and I often found myself trying to fill in the blanks before moving on with reading (in a way, it almost made me feel Thea's experience). I thought that was pretty cool overall, but another style thing is that it is most definitely written in a way that makes it seem like a literary classic. There's a lot of ruminating. There's a lot of descriptions and imagery and the story sometimes falls to the background in favor of comparing the dust to some monster. It did throw me off at times, but this is definitely the style needed for this type of book. 

With the plot, I often found myself wondering where in the heck this novel was trying to lead me. There is no clear path if I'm being completely honest (and that's okay, it's just not my favorite). The description of the book made me think that Thea would be spending more time actually learning sign and falling in love. Learning sign maybe took up 5% of the book if that. The romance was okay, but it did seem to happen suddenly in my opinion. One moment they were talking and the next it was like BAM, now we're together. Most of this novel (plot wise, anyway) had to do with the struggle of farming in Colorado and trying to do everything by yourself. Thea's dad was a "I don't need anyone's help" type of guy and it was so annoying. He was isolating his family just for the fact that he wanted to go back to old times and be self sufficient. Even those people who were self sufficient still had community, and it made me livid that he was isolating his family.

Character-wise, literally every character was developed and felt real. They all had purpose. They all had quirks. They all felt like human beings and not side characters in a novel. I was very very happy with that and it made the book that much more colorful. 

One of the only things I'm pretty unhappy with is the fact that the book wrapped up in a nice little bow. The ending felt too idyllic to be real and I think it needed to have just a little bit of tragedy in it for all of its deep subject matter. That was the one thing that really pulled me out of the story and made me go "all right, I'm definitely reading fiction."

Overall, though, Dust was poignant and beautiful in its writing and descriptions. The characters were full and developed. The plot, while lacking direction, still had a lot going for it. I could definitely see this novel being add to an English classroom to get analyzed and read by its students. All-in-all, a good read and an eye-opener for anyone who has never lived in the desert. 4/5 stars and a huge thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!

**This review will be posted on my blog on November 26th, 2024 at 12pm CST.**

Synopsis: After her father has a premonition, Thea and her family move to the Bloodless Valley of southern Colorado, hoping to make a fresh start. But the rivers are dry, the crops are dying, and the black blizzards of Colorado have returned. Much like the barren land, Thea feels her life has stopped growing. She is barely homeschooled, forbidden from going to the library, and has no way to contact her old friends―all due to her parents’ fear of the outside world’s dangerous influence.

But to make ends meet, Thea is allowed to work at the café in town. There, she meets Ray, who is deaf. Thea, who was born hard of hearing, has always been pushed by her parents to pass as someone who can hear. Now, with Ray secretly teaching Thea how to sign, she begins to learn what she’s been missing―not just a new language but a whole community and maybe even a chance at love.

This book was great. I hadn't read a speculative story in a while when I picked this one up and it made me realize that I need more of them in my life! I saw a fellow reader refer to this novel as a modern day Grapes of Wrath, and I definitely agree with that analysis.

Engaging, immersive, and timely. A recommended first purchase for young adult and high school collections.

This book was amazing, exactly what I was looking for! Atmospheric and captivating, Dust delves into resilience, identity, and the complexities of family in an unforgiving world hurt by humans. Thea is a beautifully complex character whose journey of self-discovery and quiet rebellion against her isolated upbringing is both heart-wrenching and inspiring. Stine masterfully weaves speculative elements into a desolate landscape, creating a vivid, almost haunting depiction of Colorado’s Bloodless Valley, a place where the land seems as barren as Thea’s restricted life. I would be remiss if I didn't mention the beautiful love story between Thea and Ray. Through her experiences with Ray, Thea opens up to a world she had never imagined, finding community, empowerment, and a sense of belonging that extends beyond her family’s limited worldview.

An excellent story featuring a main character who ha-pens to be deaf. Aside from the survival/adventure aspect, I thoroughly enjoyed the main character’s POV as she navigated the complications of being deaf in a hearing world and her family’s lack of empathy or even attempting to communicate with her. Another good addition to deaf YA novels, but generally an engaging read.

4.5 awesome book. tysm for the arc. would recommend, very interesting novel that would slot well into any highschool literature class to sit alongside The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice V Men.