I was drawn in by the premise of All the Water in the World and thought it might give Light Pirate vibes. Since that’s one of my favorite books, was excited to try this new climate fiction story. I also liked that it was set in NYC. Unfortunately the writing style wasn’t a good fit for me and I decided to DNF. Thank you to the publisher and Macmillan audio for the free ebook and audiobook to review.

I was a fan of Station Eleven and The Road and this book is also a very good post-apocalyptic novel. The apocalypse is caused by climate change here. We see a flooded New York City through the eyes of a young girl who only has faint memories of "The World as it Was." The story of her family's attempt to survive, then to escape to a family farm in upstate NY, was thrilling and heart-breaking and hopeful.

A haunting dystopian novel that brings together the best elements of literary fiction and climate change narratives, creating a world that feels both utterly alien and deeply familiar. With echoes of “Station Eleven”, “The Road”, and “Parable of the Sower”, Caffall offers a story that’s as emotionally resonant as it is thought-provoking.

What stood out most was the perspective of Nonie, a young girl navigating a world devastated by climate change. Telling the story through her eyes brings an extra layer of poignancy, offering a lens of innocence amidst the devastation. The dystopian society is shaped by the impact of hypercanes, a chilling consequence of global warming, and it’s fascinating how water—something so essential to life—becomes the force of destruction. The concept of a flooded New York City, with survivors living atop the Museum of Natural History, was both clever and beautifully symbolic. While the pacing is a bit slow at times and the plot sparse, much like The Road, it never detracts from the novel’s deeper themes of survival, memory, and the bonds that keep us connected.

Overall, “All the Water in the World” is a powerful meditation on what it means to preserve knowledge, culture, hope, and love in a world gone awry. Highly recommended for fans of literary dystopias.

I don't want the 3-star rating to indicate that this I found this to be a "bad" book. It has many important takeaways and was quite engaging at certain points... But I struggled to get *there*.

The first half of the book employs chapters that alternate between the past and the present. Although showing parts of the past can help with giving context for the present, this made it difficult for me to get a full grasp on who the characters were and what the world is like. The chapters are short. Many works do this in order to create and emphasize a sense of urgency; I don't think that this style necessarily works here. Each time I felt myself close to captivated, there was a sudden (expected, because of getting used to the style, but not welcome) shift that broke the immersion. I did not feel as though I could fully connect with the characters until nearly halfway through the story, when the shifting calmed.

As a side: was the style deliberate, to emulate the experience of fighting through a storm? Now I wonder.

At any rate, I do believe that this was a fascinating book. It touches upon several important matters on culture, nature, morality, and even just the trials of the human experience. It was a quick read once I was able to "lock in," but that took both determination and patience to become accustomed to the fragmented feeling throughout the reading experience. This was a pretty book, but it could have been beautiful.

Great title! I can't wait to see more by this author. What an interesting premise as well as a thought provoking setting. The characters were flawed, but likable and the story full of adventure. It had everything!

Dystopian books that center around the climate change are always going to be added to my to-read list. However, I would not recommend this book to others. It's slow, and it never picks up, despite action happening the entire time. Nonie isn't really dimensional or changing, ever. I forgot that Bix was there half the time. Keller had some personality, but he wasn't the narrator.

Even the New York-ness of it couldn't save this book.

I was expecting a bit of the Day After Tomorrow movie mixed with Atwood's After the Flood but I had no patience for the juvenile narrator.

All the Water in the World is told in the voice of a girl gifted with a deep feeling for water. In the years after the glaciers melt, Nonie, her older sister and her parents and their researcher friends have stayed behind in an almost deserted New York City, creating a settlement on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History. The rule: Take from the exhibits only in dire need. They hunt and grow their food in Central Park as they work to save the collections of human history and science. When a superstorm breaches the city’s flood walls, Nonie and her family must escape north on the Hudson. They carry with them a book that holds their records of the lost collections. Racing on the swollen river towards what may be safety, they encounter communities that have adapted in very different and sometimes frightening ways to the new reality. But they are determined to find a way to make a new world that honors all they've saved.

This one was a big disappointment for me. I love dystopian books. I love how my heart pounds when I read them and love all the emotions that you get. But I didn't get the heart pounding feeling and I didn't feel any emotions.

I didn't have a strong connection to the characters. Nonie's voice tells the story and she didn't show any emotions. Since I didn't have this connection, I didn't care what happened to the characters. Nonie is a girl that is gifted with a deep feeling for water.

This book is very slow. I was really bored. I struggle with a book that is slow like this. Once I put the book down I had a hard time picking it back up again. I also found it to be repetitive in parts.

This book is about survival and a hurricane and climate change. I would think that I would have received a lot of emotions but it was more depressing than anything. There are a lot of readers who loved this book so make sure you check out their reviews.

2.5 stars rounded up.

I want to thank St. Martin's Press and Netgalley for the copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I wasn't so sure about this book - but was intrigued by the description. This isn't my usual type of book, and I wasn't able to get through Station Eleven. Even after that I really wanted to read this one. The beginning was a bit too slow for me. Eventually the plot got more exciting as the group had to relocate and deal with different struggles on the way. I felt the ending was too short - I wanted more details. Overall, I think it was a good story. I wouldn't say it was my favorite, but a pleasant story to read.

I’m inclined to agree with the lower rated reviews on this book - so much climate fiction out there and this one is squarely in the ho-hum pile, alas. While it’s not bad, it <i>is</i> a basic and shallowly told story. The journey is fine, the characters are fine, the ending is fine .. and fine isn’t what I super want to spend my time on? I didn’t mind the dual narrative in the first third, if anything I felt it gave more substance to the story by giving us somewhat of a window into what happened before, but that tapers off and leaves the reader with point A to point B monotony without much to jazz it up. I appreciated the lesson being that they would build a new safe space / society by letting in vs. hoarding / keeping out, but this was just all right at best, whatever and unsatisfying at the worst.

<i>Thanks to St. Martin’s Press for an eARC of this book. 🙏🏼</i>

The story is packed with so many wonderful moments and details, that I have barely scratched the surface in this review. All the Water In the World would make a fantastic movie, and it sort of reminded me of the Netflix movie Leave the World Behind. My favorite apocalyptic stories are the ones that leave the reader with a feeling of hope, and this one does that brilliantly.

This is really enthralling book. I love the look at what could happen in the future if all the ice has melted and water has consumed the world.
These characters are strong and do what it takes to survive.
I enjoyed watching Nonie, how smart she is and how brave she is throughout the journey. She protects her sister Bix and helps her along the way.
This is a fast paced book, that keeps you reading, as you want to see what will happen to these characters.

Thank NetGalley for this ARC.

An excellent dystopian/climate fiction novel set in a not too far future where the icebergs have all melted and the world is hot, flooded, no electricity, and worse. The book is told from the perspective of 13 year old Nonie, who has been living at the American Museum of Natural History with her family and a small group of other workers and their families since NYC flooded. The book alternates between the night of a terrible storm when the remaining survivors decide it’s time to leave the museum and head north, and flashbacks to Nonie’s memories of the years they have spent living there and her hazy memories of before.

I thought this one was just fabulous - literary writing that was spare and yet deep, interesting characters, and scenes I could really picture in my head. It’s often sad and scary but with a little bit of hope. Think Station Eleven crossed with The Light Pirate, with a dash of The Road or The Passage. Definitely one that will stay with me.

4.5 stars

Thank you to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for an early copy of this book!

4.5 stars rounded up

I didn’t expect to love this book as much as I did! At its core, it’s a story of survival—it follows a young girl named Nonie and her family in an apocalyptic world where New York City has flooded and they find refuge with other people in what used to the American Museum of Natural History. But when a massive storm destroys the settlement they’ve built, they have to make the difficult decision to head north for survival.

It took me a minute to get into this book, but once I was in, I was hooked! The short chapters really build tension, as we follow Nonie’s journey and see her flashbacks to the World As It Was. I think it’s best to go into this book not knowing much about it, but it’s a story of family, memory, and recording for the next generation. It’s an emotional journey, with both literary and thriller aspects, but it ultimately feels like a genre of its own.

This flooded, apocalyptic world feels like it could never happen to us, but with the recent wildfires in Los Angeles, our relationship with the earth feels so fragile, and this world doesn’t seem that far off. This book particularly resonated with me because I recognized so many of the New York City and Westchester landmarks that they mention here (though they’re destroyed or underwater in this world).

Thanks to Netgalley for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

A young girl lives in the American Museum of Natural History as the oceans are rising and storms are destroying the land. A super interesting premise to me, especially as a childhood reader of From the Mixed-Up Files... This book had a bit of a slow start, and the character was definitely a child and did not always know or understand what was happening. The author also chose to move forward and backward in time, and seemed to delay some of the world building that helped to set the scene. I almost DNF'd around 25% and then the book finally started to move and make sense. I think there are parts of it that I'll be thinking about for a while, so I am giving 4 stars instead of the 3 the overall writing earned in my mind.

I really liked <I>Station Eleven</I> a lot. I'm a sucker for this story: After the Fall, now what? Maybe proof of this enduring fascination is my championing of <a href="https://expendablemudge.blogspot.com/2014/08/earth-abides-65-year-old-post.html" target="_blank"><i>Earth Abides</i></a> (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljLVhUwfdZw" target="_blank">now a TV show</a>) and <a href="https://expendablemudge.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-day-of-triffids-apocalypse-now-all.html" target="_blank"><i>Day of the Triffids</i></a>. The genre presents a long tail of goodwill, then, as well as wide scope for action set in the present. This story is split between the present crisis...being flooded out of their home on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History...and how things came to be so terrible that this is where their home needs to be.

A really good story idea, one that has a lot of genuine and affecting emotional resonance; then uses up its narrative momentum by structuring the past as flashbacks. Once or twice, okay; more than that it becomes a real drag. Start the story in the past. Trust the reader to invest in the characters, and rip our lungs out by showing us in real time what's happening. It felt to me the author was cushioning the blow by using this method of storytelling.

So no fifth star from me.

Four stars were assured when this happened:
<blockquote>“Hell, it was happening, I saw it happening. But I couldn’t picture it, you know? I couldn’t picture how we’d lose the seasons, how it would be tropical heat in November, but still have blizzards that melted into heat waves. I couldn’t picture the way the storms come and then come back. Not the polar cold fronts in the south. Not the new hurricanes, the hot winters, the king tides, the typhoons going east then west then east again. It should have been easy to see. It was in the data.”</blockquote>

This is exactly and precisely how I've been feeling about others' apparent inability to retain the thread between the past climate events and their all-but-certain genesis. My problem is that I *can* picture it and am cursed with seeing it before my appalled eyes...it's like, in the space of thirty-nine years, I've moved from New York to Maryland. Without moving an inch.

I won't live long enough (I hope) to see this novel's world in the flesh. I expect that, if I'm cursed to do so, it will look a lot like this. It was Author Caffall's gift to me to make me a lot gladder that I'm really old and fairly infirm.

The reason I hope you'll read it, though, is that its sisters Nonie and Bix are the kind of kids we should all strive to raise. They are resilient, they are resourceful, they are respectful of the limited resources they can command and mindful of their good fortune, they are angry enough to work for more and humble enough to know what "enough" means.

They made the issues I had with the structure into cavils. Had I not had them to invest my emotional energy into, I would've enjoyed the story a lot less. As it is, I do recommend it, and hope you'll take this as your nudge to see what a wounded planet will do to heal itself.

This book was a fascinating look at a future state where the climate on earth has become severe and things like "hyper-canes" are possibilities and part of the vocabulary. Lots of buildings underwater, lots of coastal and island communities no longer exist. No apparent government really, more marshal law and communities cropping up where they can based on the changing environmental landscape.

It was fascinating in the fact that parts of it felt feasible and really hit close to home with the major storms that we're seeing now on a regular basis and the way that the climate/coastal borders are changing. A lot of the supporting detail of the storyline felt very believable and generally realistic in the way of a post-apocalyptic, dystopian, science fiction novel. I thought the MCs were fairly well developed and the characters that they met along the way supported the storyline and added to the narrative.

I did think this was a bit of a choppy story at times, it didn't feel super literary, but much more choppy and abrupt in places. Maybe it felt like it was lacking a little emotion in some of the story telling. These characters have lost so much and really adapted their lifestyle to the point where it felt like their emotions or reactions to certain situations were a little muted. I did get some Station Eleven vibes - maybe just in that they felt similar from a dystopian reality point of view. Thank you to SMP/Macmillan for the eARC to read.

This was probably my first climate science fiction book and I am not sure this genre is for me, but I am glad I gave it a try!

All The Water In The World follows a group of people living on top of the American Museum of Natural History after a mega tsunami flooded New York City with water. The main character, Nonnie, is a 7 year old girl, living with her family, who has a strong sense for water movement. She can even sense when the next storm is coming. This story follows Nonnie and her family as they escape from another flood and find a new place to settle.

What I liked about this book:
-The premise was definitely interesting and I was intrigued right from the start
-The author was very good at building that eerie and uneasy feeling that loomed over the story
-I am a water person as well - not to the same degree as Nonnie, but I always gravitate towards water in times of stress/discomfort. This book was fun to read because of that additional sci-fi element.

What I didn't like:
-It felt very boring and slow throughout most of the book. I felt like the synopsis basically gives away so much of the book that I just wasn't excited by the story itself. It just felt like it was missing something.
-It also felt a little too sci-fi for my liking. I don't think I realized how much of a magical element this had and it was just a bit much for me.

Overall this book was okay. It was intriguing and had an interesting premise but it ultimately fell short for me.

Finished up this new release yesterday and it was good….

But there were places for improvement? Overall, I love a good climate-based post-apocalyptic book (or a movie) and I liked the way this one went. The world has flooded and a group of former museum workers and family are stuck in the museum where they begin to rebuild life. Waters rise and they must make a tough decision to leave or stay.

I think my major places that this one didn’t work was 1. We didn’t get much info on how it happened. I wanted more. 2. They left the museum sooooo fast. 3. The plot overall just flies by after they leave the museum that it will give you whiplash. I think there were plenty of prices that could have been fleshed out more but it wasn’t bad considering all the plot that happens.

A beautiful story of survival in the midst of societal collapse due to flooding. Let’s talk about All the Water in the World by Aaron Caffle

All the Water in the World is literary post-apocalyptic fiction in the vein of Station Eleven or Colson Whitehead’s Zone One. The story focuses on a teenage girl named Norie who lives with her family and other survivors on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City after a catastrophic flood leaves much of the city under water. The colony on the roof, called AMEN, is made up of people connected to the museum who have taken on the responsibility of preserving all of the knowledge and artifacts in the face of the disaster. After several years, a massive storm destroys their sanctuary and forces them to flee inland, seeking a new place to live. From here, the book becomes the story of a journey as Norie and her family (both biological and found) navigate the ruins of a flooded world and all of the dangers - both environmental and human - that it contains.

I really liked the characters in this book. Many of them are scientists or the children of scientists, so there is quite a bit of scientific language and conversation about extinctions and preservation and finding ways to use the natural elements that survived the flood to keep life going in the aftermath. The book is told from the perspective of a 13 year old girl with limited knowledge about the world before or much of the current world, but fairly extensive knowledge of the scientific world, so we get most of our information and understanding of what’s happening from that limited, but engaging perspective.

The beauty of this book is in the language. Even when describing devastation, Caffle does it in a way that is vivid and evokes a wistfulness about what was lost. Her descriptions of the different kinds of water and rain reflect a culture for which water has become the centerpiece of their existence. All that said, the descriptions are still simplistic in language, reflecting the limitations of a 13 year old’s perspective.

The other thing I loved about this book is the tone. It is about a journey across a broken landscape where there is loss and ruin, but there is a constant thread of hope that finds its way through the book, even in the most difficult moments. It is stark and emotional, but it isn’t bleak. Don’t get me wrong, I love a bleak end of the world story, but this was a great change of pace.

All the water in the world is climate fiction, but it’s not done with a heavy hand. The flashbacks provide some insight into a slow decline that led to the catastrophic flooding, but it doesn’t get too political or preachy. The flooding is the context for the story as opposed to some other climate fiction where the story is just there to provide a framework for a discussion of climate change.

The narrative structure of the book takes a minute to get used to - the early chapters bounce back and forth between the current time and flashbacks to the initial storm that led the family to AMEN. This flashback format continues throughout the book, giving context to some of the emotions and reactions of characters in the current timeline and adding to the emotion of the story as we get glimpses into the joys and struggles of life at AMEN.

I’m a sucker for books about societal collapse and I particularly enjoy books like this that focus more on the aftermath of the collapse than the big thing that happened. This is a book about people and how they find a way to survive together in the wake of disaster. Even the bad guys are just doing what they do because it’s the way they’ve figured out how to make it. So if you’re fan of climate fiction or books about survival in the face of collapse, I highly recommend All the Water in the World by Aaron Caffle. Check it out and let me know what you think.