A post-apocalyptic book of drowned cities and super storms and of danger and survival can sometimes provide the perfect escape from reality! All the Water in the World by Eiren Caffall is such a book. It helps that I can visualize and put myself in the physical setting of the book. At some point, I think this book would make a good movie. The ending is perhaps too neat a package, but what an adventure getting there.

Read my complete review at http://www.memoriesfrombooks.com/2025/02/all-water-in-world.html

Reviewed for NetGalley.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this free eARC in exchange for my honest review.

The premise of a post-apocalypse family, from the POV of their young daughter, living in the National History Museum sounded very interesting to me. It reminded me of two books I really loved- The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg, and All the Light we Cannot see by Anthony Doerr. In both these books, the children MCs find comfort and solace in museums and learning. This was also a quality of the MC Nonie in All the Water in the World (ATWITW)- she loves to learn about animals and the ocean. After getting into the book, it turns out that the story only starts in the museum where they have been living. We, the readers, mostly read about Nonie's family as they travel north in search of a farm that their mother told them about. There are flashbacks to the museum, and a few stories about items in the museum, but I just felt mislead when the summary implied that the story was set in the museum.

Anyway, the book is more about the journey the family takes northward, paddling in a canoe through drowned cities. There is not much going on until about the 50% mark, and there isn't much to glean from the characters, either. I know a little bit about the narrator, Nonie- she is a bit withdrawn, but she is intellectual and curious, and she misses her deceased mother. She can "sense" water, sense storms coming, but there is no further explanation or exploration of her ability. Overall she reads pretty flat to me, and I don't see any change in her character throughout the book, either. The rest of the family, plus friend Keller, were also completely uninteresting. We were told the sisters were important to each others but I barely say any evidence of that in their interactions. Same with the father. All we got with Nonie and Keller were them playing the animal game together.

Strorygraph asked me- Is the book more character-driven or plot-driven? I couldn't decide because I felt there was no plot and no character intrigue or even character development. I wanted to DNF, but I pushed through when the story picked up briefly at 50%, and the short chapters helped.

The only strong part of this book was the writing style, at points. There were lines here and there that sounded very nice, but they could not contribute anything to the bigger picture of the novel.

All The Water in the World is a story about what happens to a family trying to survive after ecological changes end the modern way of living. If you are a fan of Station Eleven and Parable of the Sower, you will like this book.

"All the Water in the World" by Eiren Caffall was an interesting novel, depicting a society where the water level rose, and the survivors are struggling with their reality and future. Thank you NetGalley, the author and publisher for the review copy. All opinions are my own.

Published by St. Martin's Press on January 7, 2025

Postapocalyptic fiction continues to be popular despite the formulaic nature of the genre. All the Water in the World imagines an environmental crisis caused by global warming. Unfortunately, that takes little imagination, given the prevailing American insistence that fossil fuel consumption is patriotic and that global warming isn’t a thing, or at least isn’t a thing that human behavior affects. Corporate America uses Fox News to tell the far right what they should believe and the far right dutifully joins every culture war — whether a nonexistent war against Christmas or the notion that alternatives to fossil fuels are bad for America — without giving any thought to the consequences of their victories.

The novel begins with a family and a few others living on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History. The adults were museum employees who remain dedicated to preserving knowledge, but violent storms are making it impossible for humans to survive in Manhattan. How deer have managed to overtake Central Park without drowning like humans is a bit of a mystery.

The central characters are sisters. Norah, the narrator, likes to be called Nonie. She’s thirteen. Her sister Beatrice likes to be called Bix. She’s sixteen. Their mother has a bad kidney and, since hospitals no longer function and pharmacies have all been raided, everyone knows she’s going to die. Their father and the other important character, a Black guy named Keller, manage to salvage a Native American canoe from the museum just before the building collapses. They will use the canoe to begin a journey.

Journeys — the quest to find a safe place where life can be remade — are standard plot drivers in post-apocalyptic fiction. The protagonists hatch a plan to take the boat up the Hudson and then walk along highways until they reach a farm where Nonie’s mother grew up. Along the way, they will encounter and overcome obstacles, including infections and a group of bad guys who want to rape Bix. After two of the travelers contract dangerous infections, the protagonists manage to find a doctor, but she’s in a community controlled by a selfish a-hole who believes that medical care and antibiotics should be reserved for community members. The a-hole doesn’t want new people to join the community unless they can work and contribute, which doesn’t describe people who need to heal.

Postapocalyptic fiction often divides survivors of the apocalypse into groups of good people and bad people, the bad people consisting of rapists, thugs, racists, and dictator wannabes, the good being those who resist subjugation. The good are open to helping others; the bad are not. Well, that’s how preapocalyptic society works, so it makes sense that an apocalypse would only enhance division, selfishness, and delusions of entitlement. Better examples of the genre make clear that the dividing line between good and bad can be fuzzy when people fight for survival, but Eiren Caffall doesn't trouble the reader with subtle thought.

There is nothing particularly interesting, or credible, about the journey that the protagonists undertake. One of the kids turns out to be handy with a gun, but how she managed to capture the gun from grown men is never made clear. A character or two will die during the trek because that’s what the formula demands, but the story creates little tension regarding the fate of the resilient sisters. Caffall does, however, offer a convincing atmosphere as she depicts the dangers inherent in global warming, including flooding and mosquito-borne illnesses.

Perhaps with a view to giving the narrator a personality, Nonie has an affinity for water. The parameters of this superpower are unclear, except that Nonie knows when storms are coming. She keeps a water logbook to record her impressions of the water. Her entries are silly and pointless.

Flashbacks to the preapocalyptic world slow the novel’s pace, as do the intermittent entries from Nonie’s logbook of water. The story otherwise proceeds swiftly to its predictable conclusion. Genre fans who just can’t get enough postapocalyptic fiction might want to add All the Water in the World to their reading lists, but nothing about the novel causes it to stand apart from other formulaic depictions of post-apocalyptic struggles for survival.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

An elegy to the past, and a musing on how people would live after massive destruction of infrastructure and services by an increasingly volatile environment. This novel is also an homage to museum workers and archivists who work to preserve our past in the face of war and climate calamities.

Focusing on one small group of people, author Eiren Caffall tells of young Nora ("Nonie") her older sister Beatrice ("Bix"), her father, and a researcher friend, Keller, all of whom live in the America Museum of Natural History in New York City. Nonie's mother died some time earlier of kidney disease, and Nonie and Bix are taught to hunt and grow their own food, and to do their best to save the collections.

Nonie has a heightened affinity for water, and can sense when precipitation is coming, and how severe.

When a massive storm breaches the city's flood walls, the Nonie, Bix, their father and Keller must all escape with what little they can grab before the floods overtake them. Taking a birchbark canoe from the exhibits, they begin travelling north along the Hudson river.

They encounter small communities, and the threat of violence and misunderstandings increase the further they travel from their lost home. The journey is frequently harrowing, deeply sad and frightening, and this is contrasted with flashbacks to a quieter time when Nonie's mother was still alive and teaching her daughters.

The writing is excellent, and moving. The story begins with the threat of danger from a super storm, and each new encounter they have along their journey north only heightens the implacability of the turbulent, filth-ridden waters, but also the fears and violence of the people they meet, and from whom they must ask for help. Though not always sure how to react, or sometimes not responsive, to who and what they encounter while travelling, Nonie feels deeply and passionately.

This is a beautiful and really sad story of people trying not just to survive, but to do the hard work of preserving aspects of society, in the hope that one day things will turn for the better, and this knowledge, and associated objects, will be needed and appreciated again.

Thank you to Netgalley and to St. Martin's Press for this ARC in exchange for my review.

All the Water in the World was such a deep book. This did take me a bit to get into but once I did I was hooked! If you enjoyed The Hatchet as a kid this book is for you!

I was looking forward to reading a dystopian book. I thought the premise for this one was interesting. I struggled with the story & pacing. It felt very textbook at times with all the random facts. It's just not what I was expecting.

Absolutely fascinating! This book grabs you by the hand and holds on tight for the ride! What a world!

Loved the concept of the book, a post-apocalyptic novel where the researchers are the leads and not put in a corner to ignore , but the slow character development and lack of initial world building made this a slog to get through. This is generally a genre I favor but this book is a miss for me. Stars rounded up for the premise.

ALL THE WATER IN THE WORLD by Eiren Caffall
Publication: 1/07/2025 by St. Martin’s Press
Page Count: 304
Audio Version published by; Macmillan Audio
Narrator: Eunice Wong
8 hrs, 42 minutes



Amazing debut novel by Eiren Caffall that combines a dystopian climate change novel with a survival novel featuring love and hope and community in the face of mounting adversity.
Since the glaciers have melted, the world finds itself mostly under water. This griping tale of love and survival is seen through the eyes of precocious thirteen year-old Nonie. Her family takes refuge on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History (affectionately termed AMEN), where her mother was a researcher. Their mission was not only to survive, but preserve the knowledge of the museum for future generations and to sustain our culture. After several years of rooftop survival a super mega storm of epic proportions (termed a Hypercane) strikes New York City, wiping out any remaining dry land. Nonie , her sister Bix, along with her father and another scientist, Kellar, must abandon AMEN. Utilizing a hidden canoe they are forced to leave and travel northward, along the route of the previous Hudson River, to seek safety in the high ground of upper New York, at her mother’s family farm in Tyringham … hoping that it’s still there and secure. The journey is harrowing and fraught with danger from disease, illness, lack of medicine and avoiding other survivors who would murder, rape and maim in order to survive. The narrative is propelled poignantly by Nonie, as she outlines the differences between the “World That Was” and the “World That Is .”
Eiren Caffall proves to be a masterful storyteller, with her poetic prose, as she has the reader feeling the amazing resilience of hope and love in the face of mounting adversity. The terrifying journey is a celebration of human perseverance and the need for community and love. The audio version is narrated by Eunice Wong, award-winning actor and narrator. She has expertly interpreted over one-hundred titles. Her skills of an actor shines through in her voice inflections and range of emotional changes. She truly brought the tale to life in the “theatre of my mind.”
Thanks to NetGalley, St Martins’ Press and Macmillan Audio for providing an Uncorrected Proof and Advanced audio version in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the DRC of All The Water In The World! All opinions in this review are my own.

I felt like this one had all of the stress of reading a dystopian book but hardly any of the action. It was slow start and I didn't love how every obstacle the characters faced seemed to be easily overcome.

All the Water in the World is a sad, yet hopeful tale of Nonie and her family. Trapped in NYC after the ocean levels rise, Nonie's family made a home for themselves in the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) and used their knowledge to catalog and save materials from the exhibits. Further destruction forces them to flee, and this book records their adventures. It is filled with loss, but also with renewed trust and found family. The characters wrestle with how to best survive in a world turned upside down while not giving up important traits of humanity, generosity, and kindness. The novel, by Eiren Caffall, is engaging as she weaves together the current adventure and flashbacks from Nonie's life at AMNH -- till at the end, you see the whole tapestry of Nonie's story.

Thank you to NetGalley and St Martin's Press for an ARC. All opinions are my own.

Thank you to Netgalley and the Publisher for this Advanced Readers Copy of All the Water in the World by Eiren Caffall!

As someone who lives a dystopian story and is a huge fan of stories like The Day After Tomorrow, I really enjoyed this. The concept of living in a world after the glaciers have melted and the world has flooded is such a cool one, especially when the main character ends up living in the roof of The Natural History Museum in NYC with her family. This was beautifully written and such a unique take.

I was worried that this would be like The Walking Dead, with tons of violence and loss. While there was some, it was more heavily focused on the preservation of science and learning. But I still don't want to survive the end of the world.

"Greed and hope aren't opposites. Greed and hope are twins grabbing for the same thing, one in fear and one in faith."

Nonie is young and living with her family and other survivors on the roof of the Natural History Museum in New York. Water has taken over the world and people are trying to survive however they can.
I went into this book not quite knowing what to expect. I love to read climate fiction. Situations where people are doing their best to survive and leaning on the others around them, whether their biological family or found family. My high-level thought here is that the writing is exquisite. Although Nonie is the main POV and she is a young teen, you don't feel it. It feels like a wise old soul is telling the story. This story has action, danger, fear, sadness, and heart. It speaks to the persistence of good in the world. Although the circumstances are scary, people still work hard at loving each other and sticking together through so much loss.

I loved this book, and finding out that the author took 11 years to write this was amazing! I hope this book finds much success and I look forward to reading more from this author.
If you loved The Light Pirate - read this, you will not be disappointed.

This was a beautifully written book whose premise immediately drew me in. The voice of the main character is pitch perfect and never wavers. Highly recommend.

All the Water in the World by Eiren Caffall tells the story of a world where climate change and rising tides have devastated the US. After the flooding starts, Nonie and her family live at the American Museum of Natural History, slowly moving upwards until, ultimately, even the roof becomes uninhabitable.

As they search for her mother’s family farm, they must traverse dangerous waters, floating through the city’s skyline, avoiding snags, and The Lost.

Told through the eyes of Nonie, a young girl, the story is heart-wrenching and yet somehow detached at the same time.

Overall, this was a quick read, and I enjoyed the realism of the post-apocalyptic setting. The most interesting part for me was that the disaster didn’t happen overnight but came on slowly over time, as fewer and fewer things we take for granted–running water and electricity, for example–could be relied upon.

⭐️⭐️⭐️ (3 out of 5)

All the Water in the World is a post apocalyptic story after a climate event destroys much of the United States, causing extreme weather and storms and flooding many major cities. It's the story about a family who seeks refuge in NYC's Museum of Natural History and their fight to survive both the elements and other humans.

This potentially could have been a compelling story, and it had its moments of intrigue that grabbed my attention. But I felt like the whole novel got bogged down in the frequent flashbacks. I wanted to know more about the here and now-- more about their time in the museum, more about how everything started, more abouthow they would surive in the present. Instead the story kept flashing back to other times and I thought it really slowed down the pacing. It also took me a long time to feel connected to any of the characters, though I did eventually grow to care about a few of them by the end (however I have already forgotten all their names!).