I wasn't sure wat to expect with this book, but the premise sounded interesting since it's something that could happen today. But I definitely was not expecting to like this as much as I did. Even though it's a coming of age teen book I feel like people of all ages could appreciate this book. I felt for Thea and her wish for more. More people in her life. More answers. More acceptance. 4.5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Wednesday Book for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Disclaimer: This book gets major brownie points for NOT KILLING OFF THE ANIMALS. I was laughing when I realized they'd all been taken to the bunker at the end of the book. Thank you, Alison Stine.

In all seriousness, this book discussed a lot of relevant topics - disability, global warming, community, brainwashing - and I think each one was handled extremely well. The entire book has gaps in the dialogue to signify when Thea misses a word in conversation, which I thought was a brilliant way to show how being deaf in one ear effects her relationship with those around her. Half the time, there was enough context where it was easy to fill in those gaps, but that wasn't always the case, and it was frustrating that Thea's parents had made her constantly work at appearing "normal". I'm so thankful that Stine, who's also deaf in one ear, didn't have Thea ashamed of her disability, even after being bullied for it and living her entire life without accommodations. Her deafness is part of who she is, simultaneously not defining her but also being an important facet of her life.

I have plenty of thoughts on how Thea's father conducted himself and his grand plans for "going back to the land", but I'll try to keep it brief and professional. Given the state of things as of writing this review, this subplot was infuriating, but it was supposed to be. Stine recognizes that there are more people than we may realize who live their lives this way: every man for himself, men at the head of the household, women and children subservient and to do as their told. It's such a lonely, harmful outlook on life, and it didn't even improve things for Thea's family the way her father deluded himself into thinking it did. Limiting media intake, the "homeschooling" system, only relying on each other and not trusting outsiders - none of that was for simplicity's sake, it was for control. Thea's father felt so powerless with how the world was evolving that instead of expressing this in a healthy way or going to therapy, he almost kills himself and his entire family by isolating them all on a failing farm, just to prove that his way of thinking is superior. It's so relevant that it's painful to think about, if I'm being honest. But I'm glad that Stine showed that the things Thea's father was afraid of weren't the bogeymen he believed them to be. Relying on community isn't a weakness, it's a strength. Knowledge is dangerous, but it's empowering as well. His daughter's disability exists, and it shouldn't be sidelined, it should be openly acknowledged.

Alison Stine has given us a multi-faceted look into how we can avoid a bleak, lonely future. I think that's one of the most important aspects, at least for me. She offers solutions and shows that change can improve the state of things, whether on a small scale or a large one. And with change comes hope, which I believe is sorely needed right now.

Great read. Had a dystopian feel as well as some historical fiction elements. Highly recommend for high school readers.

Going into Dust, I had no idea what to expect. The premise intrigued me, but I was unsure how grounded the book would be. It's tagged as a dystopian, but I wasn't sue if I should expect an exaggerated setting, or a brutally honest depiction of our current climate. As I started reading and understanding the setting, I quickly became immersed.

I normally lean towards plot-driven books. However, Dust has a slower plot. It focusses more on themes and setting, and to my surprise, this really worked for me. This is perhaps the most immersed I have ever been while reading a book. Alison Stine does such a stellar job at integrating the reader into Thea's life. The barren desert she lives in, her complicated home life, and her struggles with deafness are captured in such extraordinary detail. I felt like I was stuck in the town alongside her. On that note, I also found that this immersive setting helped to further Thea's character growth. Throughout Dust, Thea, a sheltered, homeschooled, deaf girl, slowly escapes the constraints of her father and the town he's moved their family to. By describing Thea's day-to-day life so vividly at the start of the book, Alison Stine allows the readers to feel the same relief Thea does when she breaks free and escapes to the library, a sanctuary to the teen.

As I previously mentioned, I also loved the way the author incorporated the themes of this book. Patriarchy, capitalism, climate change, loneliness, complex familial relationships and the effects of poverty on them are all discussed with such nuance. I was really blown away by the maturity of the writing. Overall I highly recommend this book if you are looking something relevant to the times we're living through right now.

Thank you to the publisher for the eARC in exchange for an honest review!

While I DNFed this one, I still have to give it three stars. While the writing is excellent and well-detailed, I’m a total mood reader, and Thea’s struggles were a bit too relatable when I was needing something that was more of a pick me up.

The Deaf representation is very well-received, so be sure to pick this one up if you’re trying to widen your reading horizons and are looking for a slower paced, challenging and emotional read!

Ive tried so hard, but I just simply can't get into this book. Thank you for the ARC. I'm so appreciative

Dust was beautifully written. The characters felt so real and I found myself holding my breath with them. I felt like Thea was a friend and there were so many moments where I just wanted to give her a hug. The blanks in the text were so harrowing and I thought it was a great way to get across the things Thea couldn’t hear. This premise made me almost nauseous with anxiousness especially given todays political climate. What an incredible read.

Thank you for the copy of Dust by Alison Stine, as I really enjoyed reading this title. I cannot wait to recommend this story to my middle school students! I think students will enjoy the main character and her perspective on what it is like being uprooted from her life. Starting all over anywhere is a challenge and Thea has to adjust to so many changes. I think a lot of students will be able to relate in some ways to Thea throughout this novel.

dust is about thea, a hard of hearing teen struggling with her family’s decision to move to Colorado after they experience floods in Ohio. it’s been a while since i’ve read a ya coming of age story, and i really appreciated the different themes of climate change and thea’s struggles with hearing. the pacing of this book was really slow however, and it took a long time for the story to unfold. i liked how the author wrote about thea’s experiences, particularly how words were cut out of a sentence because thea didn’t hear it. as a reader, it helped me understand her frustration.

overall, a thoughtful read that builds up slowly.

dust was an excellent read. I loved the writing and it was propulsive. Great character study. I would read more from this author.

Dust is great for anyone who is interested inthe Dust Bowl era of the United States, but wants a more modern story. This book has a lot going on: parental mental illness, climate change, teen relationships, disability. It is a heavy story, but one that is important to read.

This was a difficult book to read. Am I glad I read it? Yes. Do I want to read it again? Probably not.

This book centers around Thea, a teenage girl who is hard of hearing. She was born partially deaf, but her parents don’t recognize her disability. She misses a lot of what people are saying around her as she needs to try extra hard to listen. Her parents remove her and her little sister from school after a bullying incident. After a flood in their hometown in Ohio, Thea’s father decides to move them to Colorado to be homesteaders. Thea’s parents are awful and the source of several uncomfortable scenes throughout the book. Her father is a delusional narcissist who isolates and neglects his children to the point of abuse. Her mother goes along with the father’s plan because she doesn’t have a spine. The neglect is so obvious that other adults in the area almost instantly attempt to help Thea.

The area of Colorado they move to is just dust. Thea’s family moved to this area to live off the land, but the land is dry and in a severe drought. To help support the family, Thea and her mother work in town. Here Thea meets other area residents and starts to learn about her new home. However, these meetings and new information have to be kept a secret (see previously mentioned imposed isolation and neglect). As Thea learns more about the area she comes to realize this isn’t the dream location her father believes it to be.

Parts I liked:
• Deaf/hard of hearing rep by a hard of hearing author and how this was shown throughout the book
• Commentary/information on climate change and its impacts
• How the history and impacts of the Dust Bowl were woven into the narrative
• Showcasing the need for community and how we don’t have to do everything on our own

Parts I didn’t like:
• The beginning of this book is very slow and repetitive, but it picks up and starts moving forward around the 30-40% point.
• Thea’s parents and how long it takes them to recognize her disability

I really enjoyed this modern-day Dust Bowl story! It’s terrifying to think that this could happen again. I love the way the dust was almost personified in the story.

A haunting and harrowing novel about a young woman trying to find her place after her family moves to desolate Colorado.

Thea and her family relocate from Ohio to Colorado after a flood ravages their hometown. Thea's father sees a future for his family without technology or the trappings of modern life. They'll own their own land and grow their own food, school the kids at home, and eschew electricity and running water. But arriving in Colorado, the family finds a half-built house and fields too dusty and parched to grow much of anything. And then the dust storms start.

Wow, this is an amazing story. Thea is deaf in one ear, but told by her parents to hide her inability to hear. She feels disconnected from her family and the world, and Stine writes the text to illustrate the "blanks" in conversation that Thea cannot catch. With her father's reluctance to embrace technology or outside education, the book clearly illustrates Thea's suffocation of being trapped on the hot, dusty farm, unable to hear and struggling with the feeling of being different and "in between." The writing just oozes claustrophobia.

We see how easily a person's world can be narrowed without education or access to the internet or books--Thea works so hard to secretly get to the town's library, for instance, where she meets some kind town members, and Ray, another deaf kid her age, which opens up an entire world for her. Otherwise, she's so isolated, seeing only her little sister, and not even knowing that being deaf is okay. Ray teaches Thea about ASL and she accompanies him and his uncle on journeys around the county to visit other town members, learning about other types of people.

Watching Thea's world broaden is amazing, especially as she tries to learn more about her environment. DUST leans heavily into environmentalism, illustrating the effects of climate change on Colorado, and how the 1930s-era Dust Bowl horrors could so easily happen again. The storms and the climate feel like another character, creating a tense atmosphere that truly comes to life.

This book just has that uncanny ability to make you feel--the tenseness of the storms; the powerlessness Thea feels against her father; the kindness of Thea's boss at the local cafe where she works; and the bit of hope and spark that comes between Thea and Ray. It's so beautifully written, and Thea is a wonderful character. My only issue is the story's ending, which I felt wrapped up too easily. A book this dark and poignant almost deserved a more severe conclusion, as much as I cared for all the characters.

Still, this is an amazing book and so worth the read.

This work is set in a fictionalized version of the U.S. where agricultural practices weren’t changed after the 1930s environmental issues that happened, leaving places like Colorado vulnerable to dust storms and severe drought. I appreciated the author’s note explaining the choice in setting and loved the use of it throughout the work. The atmosphere was strongly written, and it was easy to visualize and get lost in the setting.

The characters were also strong. Thea especially – her hearing didn’t define her character, but it certainly influenced her in a way that felt realistic. The secondary characters were just as strong, and I loved the inclusion of Ray and their relationship. I do feel like the book ended a little too perfectly, but maybe that was needed after the darker setting of the book.

Even if you don’t typically read YA, this book is still worth the read. Many thanks to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for allowing me to read this work. All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own.

Dust—Thea is brought out to Colorado by her father after he has a premonition of a flood just prior to a flood hitting their home in Ohio. He wants to return to the “old ways” of farming, which means making life infinitely harder for his family as well as restricting his daughters to the homestead and little else. Thea has the added pressure of pretending as though she is not hard of hearing, and struggling when no accommodations are made for her and indeed when punishments are levied BECAUSE she is having a difficult time.

This is a tough read, because I just feel so bad for poor Thea who already feels so alone and stifled and who is crushed all the more by her domineering father. Don’t get me wrong; the book is great, I just am put through the wringer with her! And as for characters, even if they make brief appearances, they’re still interesting and different enough to be engaging, like Elmer and Captain, or Louisa and Stevie.

This book also deals with the effects of climate change and the struggle with the land, and the possibility that maybe we can work ALONGSIDE it rather than AGAINST it. It was interesting that it was Thea who mulled over trying to accommodate the land rather than mulishly fight it, because she would have experience in that given her disability.

Also, the climax at the end with the raging dust storm was so tense and breathless that the pages just flew away; I couldn’t keep from reading more! I think this type of book works for any number of readers: those who are looking for climate change exploration, those who are looking for disability representation, and those who just generally like YA but not with a sci-fi futuristic slant.

I received a copy of this book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

It addresses climate anxiety so well, as well as the tensions between generations when it comes to acknowledging and dealing with it. Dust also features excellent conversations about disability, similar to On the Bright Side. However one of my personal favorite things about this book is how it addresses the romanticizing of the past and historical ways of doing things.

*Thank you to Wednesday Books and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest review*

My problem was that I went into this book thinking it was going to be a queer horror story. I kept waiting for something horrific to pop out of the dust! (And not just the locusts, though that was terrifying)

But with that aside, it was a nice dip into the "unschooling" prepper culture and I enjoyed the deafness representation, especially as Thea comes from a hearing family. There was so much restriction, be it of the media she consumes, who she can talk to, or the ban on learning sign language. I did feel like it wrapped up too happily though? It didn't feel realistic...

I really liked this book but I wouldn’t rave about it. It seems like a simple story but there is a lot going on underneath. The story focuses on Thea a girl whose family is uprooted by the father from Ohio to the Bloodless Valley (not a real place) in Colorado, where they are essentially homesteaders/survivalists/preppers. The two kids, Thea and her younger sister Amelia, are supposed to be unschooled but mostly they work on the “farm” which is essentially a dust bowl.
The story is about Thea’s quest to be free of the life she is trapped in - to have friends and be able to read what she wants to and use the Internet. She is hard of hearing and has a hard time dealing with it until she meets Ray, a boy her own age who is also hard of hearing who teaches her ASL.
This book is more than its plot though. It includes topics such as isolation, climate change, disabilities and community - and it does it very well. The ending is satisfying in a good way, not miraculously happy but good.
Thanks to NetGalley for giving me the chance to read this eARC in return for a fair review.

With Dust, Alison Stine delivers readers a high-concept speculative fiction work that brings readers to a modern-day Dust Bowl and a connection to the Deaf community. This isn't my normal fare, but it certainly made me think.

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for sharing this book with me.