Note: I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion. Thank you, NetGalley and publishers.

All the Water in the World is a work of speculative literary fiction, recommended for readers who enjoyed Station Eleven, Our Missing Hearts, the Road and After the Flood. Nonie has grown up mostly in the World as It Is, with only vague memories of the way the world was before the glaciers melted. She and her family took shelter in the remnants of the American Museum of Natural History, until it is destroyed in a massive storm and they must strike out on a perilous journey into what was New York State. Note: As a dog lover, I’m confused by the choice the author made to constantly state that packs of abandoned stray dogs were the biggest predators to be concerned about, not the wolves “who only wanted deer, not humans.”

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This is a beautifully written, moving novel set in a future created by unchecked global warming. Nonie is a young girl who lives on the roof of the Museum of Natural History in what was once New York City, along with her older sister, Bix, her father, and a small group of fellow survivors. They work to salvage the history held within the museum's walls while coping with great personal loss and an uncertain future, until one day a massive storm uproots them and forces them to leave what they know and hopefully find safety far from the city.

Their journey takes them across a landscape ravished by severe weather and dotted with communities of survivors, headed towards a place they aren't sure even exists anymore. They face peril at every turn but they also find comfort in each other and in the people they meet along the way.

This is a story about the things we carry, the stories that fuel us, the people who save us, and the community we create for ourselves. Eiren Caffall is a talented voice who I will definitely keep on my list of authors to follow. This novel will stay with me and I am grateful for the opportunity to have read it early.

The quick summary: A dystopian journey narrative in which the rising of the seas is made even more dangerous as terrible storms lash the earth and drown civilization. The story is told by a young girl drawn from logbooks she has kept recounting her early years living on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. She has been there to see the changes from The World That Was, surviving with a small group, including her parents, intent on preserving the museum’s archives.
Beautiful writing and fascinating science are major points in the book’s favor, but the poor pacing prevents this from capturing my interest completely. The first half of the book is totally storm-tossed. By the time the remnants of this band make their way by river to another group of survivors north of the city, I was so waterlogged I was sure I had mold growing between my fingers.
The second half of the story is somewhat better as new characters are introduced, and with them, new conflicts. Frankly the horror of a world so fraught with natural disaster doesn’t make for great entertainment unless an element of hope is part of the story. Otherwise all we have to look forward to are more drowned bodies floating in the encroaching sea. The author does seem to realize that eventually but it was too little too late for this reader.

As someone who loves a dystopian story, I was very excited to get the arc of this one!

I absolutely loved this book. The writing was excellent and felt totally immersed and invested in the story. Once I got about 50% in, I couldn’t put it down and would be thinking of it when I wasn’t reading it. The chapters were short which kept me reading as well. I really enjoyed the end- it was very fitting and felt perfect.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the arc.

Once again, I’ve taken the opportunity to pick up a book where things are much worse than the reality I’m currently living in to remind myself that things aren’t so bad for me after all. This time, we’re following a world in which climate change has ravaged The World as It Was and forced Nonie and her family to escape their home in the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in hopes of survival.

I liked this novel but didn’t quite love it like I thought I might. The writing was quite plain up until the last few chapters, and I saw this more as a YA read because of that (although the narrator is a 13 year old girl which may have also skewed my perspective). I enjoyed all of the plot-furthering chapters where the group travels north to safety, but this was constantly broken up by chapters from the past that slowed the pace of the story.

However, I relished the found family aspect of the novel, and the main characters felt very well formed in my mind. They also end up at Bannerman Island at some point which was cool for me to read since I had fairly recently visited! There are better climate disaster books out there, but I would stick recommend this if you’re looking to pick up something new.

*Thank you to NetGalley for exchanging an e-ARC of this book for an unbiased review!

Powerful and Prescient
Much of New York has been cut off from the rest of the world by flooding. No utilities, no medical care, desperate humans, wild animals in the parks. We follow Nony who feels the power of water and its movements. Her family and others survive under desperate circumstances. If you have watched a river rising, a wash running in the desert, or flooding from a hurricane this novel puts that into words.

I would like to thank St. Martin's Press, Eiren Caffall, and NetGalley for a chance to preview this title before it's publication date of January 7, 2025.

I very much wanted to DNF (did not finish) this book about 25% of the way. But I don't like to DNF advanced reader copies so I kept going. I am glad that I did too bc this book really got interesting and engaging by halfway in. That being said, the first half (especially the first quarter) was slow. Very slow.

This book is told through the POV of a 12 year old girl. She, her father, her sister, and a family friend are living in a museum in NYC when the floodgates, in an already flooded city, break and the whole city is washed away. This is after a time where, through climate change, the whole world is flooded and there has been disease brought on by the floodwaters and increased global temperatures. Once the museum is underwater, the group is forced to head north to find a farm where her mother grew up, in hopes that it is inhabitable. Of course, the journey is not smooth sailing and chaos ensues.

The first half of the book isn't just slow in terms of plot line, it is slow by every means possible. Yes, the plot is slow, but every other chapter explains something about The Time As It Was. However, that is often explaining different parts of the museum, so it reads like a history lesson. There is actually very little character development except to say that the main character has an supernatural-esque bond with water (ie she can sense storms and their intensity). We are told very little about how the world came to be, yet we are told great details about the genus and species of different insects and animals. Again, that tends to fade and action starts about halfway when the group is finally in the throes of their journey.

Overall, this book is perfectly okay. If you are looking for an apocalyptic story, you can take your chances bc it's more of a disaster narrative which happens to be set in an apocalyptic world.

Apocalypse, Water world, Humanity, Coming of Age. Love and Loss.

Enjoyable read for me. I enjoyed their "journey" more than I enjoyed their time on Amen. Once they started on their way the book became hard to put down. Makes you think about the "what if's" and what role you can offer to a society who has nothing.


Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this story.

This was a well written, very satisfying story. It was a page-turner. The characters are well developed. It was easy to hope for the protagonist, and despise the bad-guys. The characters grew as the story proceeded. The transition between the past and the present was done very well. The "World as it was" vs. the "World as it is" was supurbly described. I hope we never get to that stage!

I was initially pulled in by the summary of "All the Water in the World" and the parallels drawn to one of my favorite dystopian novels, Station Eleven. Told from the first-person perspective of Nonie, a young girl who lives in an altered future of New York City. Nonie and her family, including her father and sister Bix, are one of many citizens who've taken residence in the American Museum of Natural History (AMHN, or aptly called "Amen") after climate change has permanently altered the world. Their home is devastated after a "hypercane" sweeps through the city, completely destroying their home and forcing the survivors to abandon their former residence and seek shelter in the ancestral family farm in NY, carrying the Museum Logbook that has kept record of their past collections.

We follow Nonie's family and Keller, a fellow survivor, on their journey to safety and are also presented with flashbacks to Nonie's past life and the memories of her mother, including her unexpected passing. We're presented with a world that feels eerily close to our present - a shocking look at the repercussions of climate change, including widespread disease and illness on top of unpredictable natural disasters. The set up is promising, offering a chance to examine the societal and geopolitical factors that have led to our current (and likely future) path, as well as a family and community who have suffered the many repercussions of global change - but I do not think the novel delivered. The writing is barebones and felt underdeveloped; sentences are simple and there was opportunity for so much additional physical descriptions (of the setting, of the disasters) as well as character growth and development. Despite Nonie being the protagonist, there's very little about her that I found to connect with her on, and the additional characters don't get much attention or complexity either.

This was unfortunately one of the more disappointing reads of the year for me - a fascinating premise, but I did not find that the writing delivered.

All the Water in the World by is a compelling post-apocalyptic novel set in a dystopian future ravaged by climate change, where rising ocean levels and superstorms (hypercanes) have flooded New York City. The story follows Nonie’s family and a group of survivors as they abandon their haven on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History and journey up the Hudson River.

Eiren Caffall’s writing is both descriptive and poetic — occasionally veering into YA territory — with themes of community, humanity, grief and resilience. I appreciated that the survivors were anthropologists, scientists and educators with expertise in science and medicine, rather than average, everyday citizens with no survival skills.

For fans of: The Day After Tomorrow and The Last of Us (minus zombies)

Thank you to #NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advanced reader copy of #AllTheWaterInTheWorld. To be published Jan. 7, 2025.

Thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for this ARC of Eiren Caffall's All the Water in the World.

This beautifully written memoir is an emotional deep dive into grief, resilience, and the connections we hold to both people and places. Caffall’s prose is poetic yet raw, offering a deeply personal account of loss while exploring the larger environmental and societal impacts of climate change. The metaphor of water runs throughout, connecting themes of impermanence, renewal, and the inescapable flow of life.

Caffall’s ability to weave her own story with reflections on the changing world is what makes this book so compelling. Her writing feels intimate, as though she’s inviting you to sit with her memories and fears while finding glimmers of hope in the larger picture. The emotional weight of the narrative is balanced by moments of profound beauty and insight, making it both heart-wrenching and uplifting.

All the Water in the World is a must-read for those who appreciate lyrical memoirs that tackle personal and universal themes with honesty and depth. It’s a book that lingers, encouraging readers to reflect on their own connections—to loved ones, to the environment, and to the unstoppable flow of time.

This book swims like it would be a good YA read for young people interested in dystopian stories. For me, the description of the book sounded great, but it sort of fell flat for me. I found the beginning of the book to be slow, making it hard for me to want to finish. The second half was much better and I think people who really like this genre will probably enjoy this book.

Thanks to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for this ARC of Eiren Caffall's 'All the Water in the World.'

I really enjoyed this novel. I'm a sucker for post-apocalyptic novels that have a hint of optimism - think Neal Stephenson's 'Seveneves' or James Howard Kunstler's 'World Made By Hand' series - and although 'All the Water in the World' is very harrowing and full of brutality, I found that there is some light at the end of the tunnel and a lot of humanity remaining. It also has an element of Peter Hoeg's 'Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow' as one of the young women has an innate understanding of water and weather.

I'm also very familiar with the current real-world geography of this story and quest so was intrigued to be able to envision just exactly how those specific locations in New York city and up the Hudson River fared after being inundated by rising oceans. It made it extremely believable for me and rooted it firmly in reality.

It does use some of the familiar tropes of post-apocalyptic and climate change speculative fiction but I (a) don't know how you avoid those anymore and (b) they're leavened with enough additional narrative that they don't feel hackneyed. Additionally, the make-up of the group and their goals and quest are sufficiently original to offset the more familiar elements.

Beautifully written, highly recommended.

All the Water in the World by Eiren Caffall takes place in the dystopian future of climate change with the world becoming submerged under water and superstorms. Nonie, her sister Bix, and her father live on the roof of the Museum of Natural History in New York. They are forced to leave to make a horrendous journey in search of a family farm. In a world where survival is measured day by day, the family encounters dangers at every turn.

I would recommend this book for readers who can appreciate the magnitude of dystopian literature in our era of climate change. This book speaks volumes for how people may be forced to survive if ocean levels continue to rise and coastal areas are flooded. The story feels real and terrifying, I felt for the characters and the hardships they endure.

Thank you St.Martin’s Press and Netgalley for the advanced reader copy. All opinions are my own.

The premise was interesting, but it failed in the execution. The story felt a bit all over the place, and the pace was quite slow for the genre, which made the storyline drag. The writing itself was solid, but it just didn't pull me in or keep me engaged.

As soon as I started this book, it read eerily close to Station 11 and the Light Pirate. With climate change novels becoming more popular, there will be inevitable overlaps and common themes but this seemed almost too evident. In addition to its excessive flowery prose at the expense of clarity, this was mostly a disappointment for me.

Wow, this book was kind of insane in that it isn’t a far fetched look into what the future could be. I really enjoyed the way this was written and the narrators perspective. It really makes you think, and that’s my favorite type of story.

“All the Water in the World” is a post-apocalyptic tale set in the near future.

Climate change has caused the oceans to rise precipitously. New York City is virtually empty and on the verge of being completely submerged. For the past several years, teenage girls Nonie (14) and Bix (16) have lived on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History with their father and other staff, working to save the museum’s exhibits for future generations. Life has been very hard and the family has suffered great loss. A monster storm hits, and the museum is destroyed. Nonie, Bix, their father, and a friend set out up the Hudson River in a restored Native American birch-bark canoe, hoping to reach a family member’s farm up north. Will they survive the various dangers along the way and what will they find when and if they reach the farm?

This is a “road novel,” somewhat reminiscent of, but different from, Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road. It’s more a literary work than it is a thriller, although there are some very tense scenes. Author Eiren Caffall is a very talented writer. She excels at literary prose and at imagining and describing what a world assaulted by super-storms and drowning under risen seas might be like.

For me, at times, the novel dragged on, especially in the beginning. There’s a lot of “back-story.” In fact, throughout much of the novel, Ms. Caffall alternates chapters about the past with chapters about the present. I found the chapters dealing with the past more depressing than compelling. Then again, this is a novel that features loss as its major theme.

Nevertheless, it is very well written and I suspect that those who prefer literary prose to the straightforward kind of writing utilized in most thrillers will find much to admire here.

My thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin’s Press, and author Eiren Caffall for providing me with a complimentary ARC. The foregoing is my honest, independent opinion.

This is the environmental dystopia that I see us living through. Glaciers are really melting, but we didn't have a drop of rain in NY in ages. Apparently this year is the first year we passed the 1.5C threshold. So yeah, things are going "swimmingly" and no pun intended. Those who do not know how to swim should consider learning how soonish

Knowing exact locations and paths in this story makes it easier to actually imagine what it would look like when the water levels rise. I can picture over flowing Hudson rising against cliffs of Palisades where I go for hiking, or West Point looming over the water, or Storm King Mountain having a "shore". I can picture the journey the sisters, their father, and their friend took to get to safety. What I did not want to picture was the rate people turning into someone else or something else under these circumstances. In some cases it happened out of necessity, in others because of evil in people.

Every time I see the abbreviation for Natural History Museum (ANHM), I read it as AMEN (and I'm not religious for this to come to my mind as first thing). And this book make me feel validated. My brain was not the only one making that switch!