I rarely read an ecologically focused, post-industrial civilization novel I don't like, and this one is no exception. Some people think the genre is about doom, but these are the kind of visions which give me hope.

This one has a YA feel to me, with the narrator being a girl of 12 or 13, her teenage sister, and others on a journey to find a new beginning after floods and diseases have wiped out the world that was, and ended their effort to save a record of its natural history.

A fairly quick and enjoyable read.

Intriguing post-apocalyptic fiction. Two young girls are living with their parents in the Museum of Natural History (AMHN, or Amen in the book) with other refugees from floodwaters breaching Manhattan. A page-turning read with many sacrifices and dangers along the way as they struggle to reach a family farm in the Berkshires. Lots of stuff about water.

In this book there is The World As It Was and The World As It Is, and Nonie has lived through both of them alongside her sister, parents, and their found family. These people have created a settlement on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History until they are faced with a storm and they must escape to find safety. Will they be able to survive outside of their settlement, and find a new home, or will the water get the best of them?

I really wanted to love this book from the beginning, but it didn't get good for me until about half way in. I was fully invested in Nonie and Bix's story and I wanted to know what happened to them, and so I kept reading, but the first half of the book was really slow for me. However, the character development was great, and I really loved Nonie's 6th sense/relationship with water and the "Animal in Mind" game- they both brought a really neat SciFi element to this book.

This book was a very futuristic, dystopian read, and it's a little scary because this is something that could become a reality one day. If this is your vibe, give this book a read!

Thank you to NetGalley, Eiren Caffall and St. Martin's Press for a chance to read this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

All the Water in the World is a post-apocalyptic novel, about what the world will be like once climate change has irrevocably changed the world, with the ice caps and glaciers melted and the ocean levels rising well above what coastal cities such as Miami and NYC can withstand. Nonie and Bixie live with their parents on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History, or Amen as Nonie refers to it. As the book opens, a hypercane (super hurricane) has hit NYC, surpassing the flood gates, causing Nonie and Bixie and their group of fellow refugees to attempt to escape from the city and venture north to areas unknown in the hopes of finding solid ground not impacted by the rising water levels.
Nonie is the narrator of the story, and we are told she is approximately 12-13 years old and it is implied she is on the autism spectrum, and the chapters of the book alternate between present day as they escape the city, and into the past showing how Nonie and her family end up on the roof of Amen and how they had survived as a group up to the point of the super storm. The writing was well done, and the voice felt accurate for a young tween/teen girl, and while the book itself was relatively short, I felt like a lot of ground was covered, both literally and figuratively, to develop the world, and show character growth for both Nonie and Bixie. While the concept of a world permanently changed by our globe's rising temperatures is terrifying, the ending of this novel left me feeling hopeful for the characters.
Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the electronic ARC of this novel for review.

This book started out a little slow for me but in the end it was worth it to keep going! I loved watched the characters throughout the story!

Thank you to St.Martins Press for the ARC of this novel from debut author Eiren Cafall. I really enjoyed this dystopian/climate fiction novel that tells the story of 13 year old Noni and her family who, when the novel opens, are living in a future New York City that has been flooded and largely abandoned. As Noni, her sister, and her father are forced to leave what’s left of the city and attempt to travel to a farm in New England, they encounter challenges, lose some family and find other allies. Cafall has created characters you root for and manages to provide hope in a dark situation. I look forward to reading more from Cafall in the future.

Some books take your breath away. All the Water in the World takes my breath away.. This book reads more like a recollection than a novel. A survival story that follows a unique group of people from New York’s Natural History Museum to the water-soaked world of a climate that has changed. Through the eyes of the 13-year-old girl, the book transports the reader, not only through the physical trials of surviving in an apocalyptic world but also the emotional depths of a broken child. But that’s not the main theme of the book. It is resiliency and hope and strength. Not since Life as We Knew It by Susan B Pfeffer, have I read a more honest accounting of global worst case scenario. I would love to read a sequel following girl’s future. I feel her story has just begun.

All the Water in the World is more than a coming of age story. As Earth loses the fight for environmental balance, storms become more severe and deadly, eating up land and buildings that were once thought impregnable. Norah and her small family, mother and father scientists and older sister have moved into the Museum of Natural History racing to secure, protect, and document the precious collection. Gradually the storms outside grow in intensity mirroring the intensity of loss and decision to escape amount the few survivors in the museum. A weather phenomenon called a hypercane which is every bit as frightening as it sounds forces Nora and her small family into the water on a quest to find the family farm.
Norah's gift is to feel water in her very being, she knows the quality of water, when it will come, and its nature. Her life goal is to join a science vessel that has been exploring the oceans for years.
The years spent in the museum are an archeologist or paleontologist dream but it is too dense to hold the attention and imagination of the average YA reader without substantial context. Once the group moves off the Museum, a thrilling adventure to escape one peril into an unknown peril, the novel rapidly moves into its own, a Huck Finn on the Hudson.
I recommend this book to YA who want adventure within a recognized landscape.

Realistic and fascinating premise. The story drew me in immediately and I was vested in the characters until the end. An excellent and thought provoking read. I highly recommend!

I was looking for a diverting novel during election week here in the U.S., and in some ways, this fit the bill. Set in a future U.S. in which climate change has resulted in extreme sea level rise, this book had all the post-apocalyptic and survivalist vibes I normally enjoy.

It is set in a natural history museum in NYC, in which the inhabitants both protect (catalog, pack) the collections for future humans and learn from the collections. Often taking their cues from indigenous peoples, they build longhouse-style shelters on the museum roof, forage for food and hunt game in Central Park, preserve it as pemmican, and fix up an old birch bark canoe in the exhibit. The people sheltering there have a fascinating range of expertise (most were employed by the museum and therefore had keys that allowed them to access it after the floods began); they also have the museum's research library (a reminder that print is still the most stable format for preservation!).

Eventually, the hypercanes (storms more extreme than hurricanes) make saying in the city impossible, and they set out to find an old family farm in upstate New York. The journey is dangerous, with threats coming from humans as well as the weather. One of the biggest threats is injury, since medicines are in very short supply.

The main character, Nonie, has a sixth sense about water - she can feel when storms are coming and what sort they will be. She understands this watery world in a unique way that is often helpful. Yet, this superpower is never very important to the plot. I kept waiting for a big plot twist that would involve Nonie's predilection, but it never came.

All of the ingredients for a great novel are here, but the execution was not an A+ for me. The narrative slogged. Perhaps some more aggressive editing would have helped. I also expected more connection to indigenous knowledge in the second half of the book, but it seemed like the characters just left all that back at the museum. Seems like a big missed opportunity.

I started reading this book the day before the election, and I wasn't sure I could finish it. The writing is beautiful, and going from what we laughingly call Real life to this climate-change apocalyptic story was really difficult. The fascinating first person point of view is that of a very young girl, and the timeline jumps around in a way that certainly evokes my granddaughters. For anyone who knows NYC, the Hudson Valley, and western Mass, the evocation of the geography is chillingly wonderful. And as literary as it is, this really is a thriller. I was really hooked, in spite of the pain of living in this world, and I needed to see what happened next.

This story is a futuristic thriller during times of tragedy and upheaval. As the ultimate storm ravaged through cities and caused destruction and chaos around the world. Norah “Nonie” and her family faced uncertainty and death-defying situations while trying to survive this new water-logged world. The story was very hard to follow and understand in the first few chapters as we are introduced to the storms and given some background information. It is a long book and really took until chapter 25 (out of 80) to get some clarity about the connections to the main character and people from the past that kept being mentioned. I really started to enjoy the book once they left their initial shelter and set off on their journey to find a new place to stay safe. The story wrapped up nicely. The novel was just too long in my opinion. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for this ARC copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

All the Water in the World is a dystopian story based on climate change and the rising ocean waters. It was a great premise that drew me in. “The World As It Is” has seen the rise of the oceans to levels that have taken out most coastal cities. New York City built flood walls that allowed for some dry areas to remain, although most people have left. A few survivors have made their home on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History. They are toughing it out until a hypercane (a storm of unbelievable proportions) comes, forcing them to head north in hopes of finding dry ground on which to start anew.
The book is told from the perspective of Nonie, a 13 year old girl who has already lost her mother. She doesn’t really remember anything from the time before the floods came. The book alternates between the present and chapters that detail how things evolved to the current point.
This is a hard story about loss, survival and just continuing to move forward. Chaffall has done an excellent job with world building. Small details are spot on, like how it never gets cold enough for bears to hibernate. She even incorporates real places like The Cloisters, Storm King Mountain and Olana to help. It was easy to envision this watery world and how civilization had totally crumbled. Unfortunately, I found the plot slow and plodding. The writing itself felt mostly dull with just occasional glimpses of poetry.
My thanks to Netgalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advance copy of this book.

Thank you so much, St. Martin's Press, for providing me with this ARC and a chance to read this book pre-release. As always, all thoughts are my own. ✨

I had such high expectations for this book, but sadly it didn't resonate with me. The dystopian and post-apocalyptic themes initially caught my attention and intrigued me. However, as I delved deeper into the story, the plot seemed to drag on and felt somewhat repetitive and redundant.

In terms of writing style and structure, I will certainly give credit where credit is due. The author undoubtedly possesses skill, and I can understand why some readers might fall in love with the writing style of the author.

Despite its unique premise, it reminded me of "All the Light We Cannot See" in that it was filled with a pervasive sense of doom but lacked a compelling plot to drive the narrative forward.

If you appreciate slow-paced, monotone adventures and are interested in discussions about climate change, this book might be right up your alley. Personally, though, this is a big no thank you for me.

The expected publication date is January 07, 2025.

I love dystopian books, and comparing this to Station Eleven was what made me request it, however this will be a detriment to this wonderful book because many people will buy this based on that and it’s by no means in the same wheel house.

All the Water in the Worls stands on its own with its affable narrator and unique premise.

The setting shines and the prose is beautiful and lyrical and the characters are easy to understand their motivations.

Fans of climate fiction rejoice!

I wished I liked this more than I did. It had so many great elements, but I found the premise was better than the execution. The writing felt a little messy and all over the place while the plot was slower than I would have preferred for this type of story. Despite the major flaws, I was surprised that it was still able to elicit more emotion than I expected. I do think the comparisons to Station Eleven hinder your expectations for the book, so I would keep that in mind.

ARC provided by NetGalley

I'm guessing the 48-hour window to download and read this science fiction / speculative fiction novel is to create buzz, so I tore through it and am not waiting for the pub date to post my review to my review site.

This was probably not the best novel to start reading as I watched election results come in. In a future surely not too distant, the effects of climate change have resulted in unpredictable weather, mosquito borne illness, temperature swings, flooding, and the complete dissolution of society, technology, and industry, and manufacturing. People live in found families in tent cities and utopic compounds, anywhere above the rise of the water that is too dirty to drink and potentially dangerous to touch. Looting, mold, and Wild West style survival seem to be the order of the day.

Nonie’s parents made a home where they met and worked, on the roof of New York City’s American Museum of Natural History, or Amen (AMNH) as it’s now known. The narrative, in Nonie’s impeccable, slightly naive, often wise, autistic 13-year-old voice, is divided into eras she has created, named for types of water she’s experienced. The before times are marked by security and apartment living, and when Mother was still alive. The now times begin with a hypercane bearing down upon Amen, the walls in danger of being breeched. An ancient artifact–a birchbark canoe–may be their only escape from the lethal storm. Headed for a farm in the Berkshires, Nonie, Bix (her older sister, traumatized by the death of her peer during a wild dog attack), their father Allan, and his friend Keller push off, risking hostility or death and everything in between anywhere they stop for rest and refuge along the way.

This apocalyptic novel is absolutely gripping, horrific, and unputdownable. The dangerousness of their mission and the dispiriting condition of both the world and the human condition is balanced by clever writing: in one scene, the men debate how to navigate New York over the city by canoe in a manner reminiscent of New Yorkers debating the best way to get uptown by cab, rattling off street names like they can still the signs marking them as waterways. There is hope in recounting of the return of artifacts to Indigenous peoples, the sensitivity and respect for their culture, and recognition and gratitute when recipes and ways of living are appropriated from the Native cultures that knew how to live with a sometimes unpredictable and hostile land. There is also the kindness of strangers, generous even when they have little themselves. And there is baseness, too: institutional racism as people aligning with like and mistrust and reject others; an attempted rape; withholding medicine when there is plenty to go around; the corruption of a tiny amount of power.

Caffall’s deliberate word choices masterfully solidify Nonie’s voice; we see the beauty in the breakdown alongside catastrophic devastation: floating squirrels and rats and garbage juxtapose with the artistic look of abandoned rusted cars, and an collapsing house where the carpet is now moss, trees grow through flooring and skylights to touch the gray sky. The detritus of human life spells out stories one can only speculate on with each abandoned object. The complete, bleak, world-building depicts something akin to a return to pioneer days: lantern light, handwriting, cooking pemmacin and hardtack, crafting salves of goldenseal for healing, and drinking willow bark tea and chewing twigs for pain management in the absence of any other options.

Nonie, a budding. naturalist, shares many details of fossils, sea life, animals, plants and insects, using her scientific knowledge to try to make sense of things she doesn’t understand. Tales passed down by women in her life also help: Buddhist teachings, an excerpt from Moby Dick, snippets of song. The journey from New York to Massachusetts recalled other modern tales for me as well: the survival elements of Meg Rosoff’s how i live now; Stephen King’s novella The Long Walk as the characters step onto the remains of the Mass Pike, now two lines of broken asphalt with dirt in the middle; and Zombieland, as they meet up with other Lost folk, sharing hopeful tales of places that might still be habitable, with clean water and medicine, mythical in proportion and distance and actuality.

Wonderfully constructed and gorgeously written, All The Water In The World has award-winner written all over it. An author’s note states this was eleven years in the making; it’s a masterpiece about a difficult to face potential gtim future that feels doomfully possible and too close for comfort.

I received a free advance reader’s review copy of #AllTheWaterInTheWorld via #NetGalley, courtesy of #StMartins. This review will post to HLBB on 11/11/2024.

📖 “We can change the land again with softness, making right what we got so wrong in the years of greed.” 📖⁣
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𝘈𝘭𝘭 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 by Eiren Caffall⁣
What a truly fascinating book to read days out from the US Election. This post apocalyptic tale is set in a New York City decimated by floods and hurricanes. Nonie and her family are living on the roof of Amen (American Museum of Natural History - AMNH) until an even more devastating weather event forces them to abandon their home in an attempt to find land not reclaimed by the ocean. This is the tale of their journey to find a new home. ⁣
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As I was reading this I couldn’t help but think about all of the increasing natural disasters that have occurred just in the US in the last six months. Floods, hurricanes, droughts, extreme temperatures, and forest fires are on the rise. This book reads like a cautionary tale to all those who continue to deny our changing climate and planet. ⁣
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Nonie tells this story from the point of view of a young girl living through the end of one world and the start of another. Her journey reminds us that life contains deep sadness as well as endless hope for a better future. ⁣
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Thank you to Net Galley for the opportunity to read this advance copy. Publication date January 7, 2025

When the description starts with "If you liked "Station Eleven"...", well, many books do that and rarely deliver. This is the exception. I took the chance and was not disappointed. I wanted to devour it in one sitting but made myself slow down and enjoy it. It is beautifully written, incredibly visual and descriptive, but also not repetitive or long. I could easily picture the museum's interior and how Amen would look and feel (as well as the other settings, which I will not spoil in this review). It also made me think a little about Margaret Atwood's MaddAdam series, specifically the first two books. I will be ordering for my school library as well as for my Little Free Library - this book deserves to be read.

An interesting approach to a possible future filled with water. Dystopian novels are widely available, but weaving a good tale into a fictional future isn’t an easy task. This one keeps the story interesting.