All the Water in the World takes place after catastrophe. The glaciers have melted, the waters have risen. Shore-bound cities are deserted or underwater. Nonie (Norah) lives in the American Museum of Natural History. She, her parents and sister have taken refuge there and help keep the history safe from mold, water and rot. The world is dystopic and civilization is had stepped back to the middle ages and small factions war with each other, meaning no one is safe.

Nonie has a sense of water, and her sense brings another almost gothic, creepy tone to the story. Caffall has used stories of the curators in Iraq and Leningrad who worked to protect their collections from war to inspire this story and there are certainly notes of everyone's favorite museum novels. When a new superstorm breaches the city for good, Nonie and what's left of her group needs to begin to move North to a place her mother once owned. Follow Nonie and her family in a heartbreakingly and thrilling real story of what life would be like when the water rises!#stmartins 3allthewaterintheworld #eirencaffall

With so much news about climate change, climate change deniers, documentaries about the changing weather patterns and intensities, I'm not surprised that there is a work of dystopian fiction that has grown from this. What surprised me was that unlike some works of dystopian or post-apocalyptic fiction, this novel is not angry in tone, it isn't violent for the sake of violence and filled with a survival of the fittest mentality. Instead, it is told from the perspective of a girl, or young woman, who experiences the changes of the world, personal loss, tragedies and violence, but there is a thread of hope in her voice. We see the changed world through her eyes, her flashbacks to when her family first left their home, and follow her journey in search of a place that is livable as conditions change. There was a modicum of melancholy feel to the narrative of this book and yet there is optimism for a future that steers this story forward. Strangely enough, it didn't feel like a work of dystopian science fiction but more historical fiction, if history was the future. I enjoyed reading this story, though it was different from what I expected.
I received access to this ARC thru NetGalley (for which I want to thank NetGalley and the publisher, St. Martin's Press) for an honest review. The opinion expressed here is my own.

This is a great concept for a novel. The world is covered by water that is conquering more and more land. Besides saving people and searching for medicine, they still have to survive other people's cruelty and the elements. Life is fragile in this dystopian future where the characters constantly mention and speak with nostalgia about what was lost. The novel becomes a good reason to point out many things we will miss after the consequences of our present acts (environmental catastrophe).

Things that we take for granted every day of our lives are gone, worried with the wrong priorities. The voice of the narrator is a sweet but brave character. She is a young one who has a lot of respect for water and is also covering the world in a dystopian future. The author's style comes forward through her voice with constant lists, making a point on carrying a gun, criticizing the past (our present) mentality, touching many and many references from racism, social, political, cultural, common knowledge, the importance of books and knowledge and life lessons.

Thank you Publisher and Netgalley for this advance e-copy.

Schedule :
August 15th - insta and blog post (no review) announcing upcoming book
January 10th, 2025 - Instagram and blog schedule Review post

Will share all links closer to dates