This book effortlessly weaves the gut-wrenching survival story of a 37-week pregnant protagonist in the wake of an apocalyptic earthquake with the sensitive character drama that she was living before The Big One hit. The result is stunning and terrifyingly relatable for any parent.

Pattee's novel is one of those read straight through in one sitting book. Actually, this book is one of those where you have to physically restrain yourself from reading the last few pages to find out what happens! Tilt tells the store of one day in the life of Annie, who is 37 weeks pregnant and at IKEA alone buying a crib when a massive earthquake hits Oregon. As Annie tries to walk home through the destruction to get back to her partner, her interior monologue is a frantic, ripped from the headlines searing indictment of climate change, the staggering cost of American healthcare and dental care, the pregnancy industrial complex, urban real estate prices, and the futility of making art in a broken world. In a taut 240 pages Pattee accomplishes so much. What a debut! What a voice! Thanks S&S/ Marysue Rucci Books and NetGalley for the DRC.

Title: Tilt
Author: Emma Pattee
Publisher: Simon Element | S&S/ Marysue Rucci Books
Reviewed By: Arlena Dean
Rating: Four
Review:
'Tilt' by Emma Pattee

My Insight:

'Tilt' was quite a suspenseful read, as was what happened to Annie during an earthquake in Portland, Oregon. While at the store, an earthquake occurred while Annie went shopping for a crib. Being pregnant in her 37th week, her first baby, while looking for her husband, what will happen after this disaster? Annie will have many flashbacks as we are given a story of what happened before the earthquake. Be ready for wanting more of this story after reading about what happens when a natural disaster happens, how it will be taken in with how people react, and especially what happens while one is pregnant. This was a good read, but an epilogue would have been nice at the close of this story.

Thanks to Net Galley and the publisher for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Annie has finally gotten around to shopping for a much needed crib at IKEA in Portland when a massive earthquake hits. Left without her phone or purse, she must traverse the city to find her husband. Along the way Annie sees both desperation and kindness. Looting right along with offers of help. As Annie walks, she ruminates about her life, both the good and bad and if she can only make it home, she’s determined to change her life. This book was riveting! Taking each painful step alongside Annie makes us wonder what we would do in the face of a world alternating tragedy. Especially at 39 weeks pregnant. Traveling from Chehalis to Longview after Mt. Saint Helen’s erupted gave me a small taste as roads closed, logging roads were taken, being the last car through on more than one occasion, seeing the logs that looked like matchsticks flowing down the river, left me wondering if we would make it home or where we would end up that day. As I said, a small taste, but a taste nevertheless. This story is told in one compelling day. A day that will never be forgotten. My only regret was the ending … I wanted more! Thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for an ARC of this book.

An interesting and relatable debut which takes place in a day. Set in Oregon, this book is a cataclysmic experience/reminder of the aftermath of a natural disaster.

Told through flashbacks and present events, we follow pregnant Annie as she tries to find her husband after an earthquake.

This book is an ode to motherhood, humanity, inhumanity, survival and the resilience of humans.

It was candid and raw. I love that it was a short read and the author did not prolong the agony.

I didn’t like the open ending. I read it more than once to try to understand what the author was thinking but no luck.

If you love apocalyptic fiction with unlikely characters then you should read

I must say that I have never read a book like this before. It’s a tragic suspenseful survival story. Annie, the main character, is at IKEA shopping for a crib while being 9 months pregnant when an earthquake hits. The book is told through her voice relaying all that’s happened before and afterwards to “Bean”, her baby to be. Nothing like leaving it to the last minute and shopping at that point by herself. Never having lived through an earthquake and hopefully never to experience it, this was a story that you couldn’t look away from. The story details everything Annie experiences from her relationship with the baby’s father through all she encounters afterwards including all the people both good and bad as she tries to find her way home. #Tilt #EmmaPattee #NetGalley
Thank you to Simon & Schuster and NetGalley for an advanced e-arc of the book. All opinions expressed are my own.

“Tilt,” by Emma Pattee, S&S/ Marysue Rucci Books, 240 pages, March 25, 2025.

Annie, 35, is nine months pregnant and shopping for a crib at IKEA in Portland, Oregon. It is the first day of her maternity leave. Her dream was to be a playwright. Now she is the office manager at a technology company.

Her husband, Dom, 38, is a struggling actor who picks up shifts at a cafe. They had a fight the night before. She talks to the baby “Bean” in her thoughts.

Then a massive earthquake hits. Annie starts thinking back to when she and Dom met. She is trapped under debris, but another woman helps her get out. She’s lost her purse and can’t find her car keys or her phone. She and a woman named Taylor, who is trying to get to her daughter’s school, decide to walk.

As she walks, Annie reflects on her struggling marriage, her disappointing career, and her anxiety about having a baby. If she can just make it home, she’s determined to change her life. Will she make it to safety before going into labor?

The timeline of the book is one day. I struggled with this novel. Both Annie and Dom are immature and self-centered and some parts are just unbelievable. The ending doesn’t resolve the big questions.

I rate it three out of five stars.

In accordance with FTC guidelines, the advance reader's edition of this book was provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for a review.

Tilt is the page-turning story of a pregnant woman’s search for her husband after a devastating earthquake in Portland, Oregon.

Over the course of one day, Annie who is nine months pregnant survives a devastating earthquake (at Ikea) and sets out across the wreckage of Portland (Oregon) to find her husband.

One day in the life of an earthquake survivor.

This story takes place at Ikea initially. After the devastating earthquake, Annie sets out in search of her husband and navigates the destruction on the streets of Portland (Oregon). The story takes place in one (very long!) day.

The survival and search aspects of the story make it a page-turner. As you can imagine, Annie comes across some colorful characters and desperate situations. My concern for Annie’s safety and her situation had me reading compulsively.

Even though Tilt is page-turning, it is also heavily character-driven.

Is Annie a likable character? Well….Annie is a complicated character! She is determined to a fault. Her perseverance kept her going at two points when I thought she should stay. If I were in her situation at nine months pregnant, I might be a bit emotional and/or irrational as well. I might have been tempted to find safety for myself and the baby and let my husband find ME!

As she makes her way across the city she reflects on her career, her marriage, and motherhood. She has an opportunity to interact with a variety of people which results in an array of outcomes. We learn more about Annie as she reacts to offers of assistance and has her own opportunities to assist others.

Then we have the reason she was in Ikea in the first place: procrastination. She should not have waited nine months to buy the crib!

So, likable or not? Annie is unprepared for sure, but she has grit. How do any of us know what we would do in a disaster? I can imagine that her decisions and actions would make a great book club discussion!

Even though the conclusion is likely realistic, I need to alert you that I didn’t find the conclusion especially satisfying as I was left with a few questions. Has this earthquake wrecked her whole life? How will she pick up the pieces from here? If ever a story needed an epilogue, it’s this one!

Content Consideration: earthquake devastation and trauma

Fans of page-turning survival stories with sides of suspense will want to add Tilt to your spring/summer beach or pool bags! If you live on the West Coast of the U.S., you might be triggered or intrigued by the content. Residents of Portland, Oregon won’t want to miss a story set in their “home town”!

Thanks #NetGalley @SimonBooks for a complimentary eARC of #Tilt upon my request. All opinions are my own.

Thanks to the Simon Element, Mary Sue Rucci Books, and NetGalley access to Tilt in exchange for my honest opinion. Climate fiction isn’t a typical genre for me to read, but I was completely sucked into this book once I started it. It’s concise, at less than 230 pages, but the plot and writing are rich.
Annie is nine months pregnant, shopping at IKEA for a crib on her first official day of maternity leave. The Portland IKEA is northeast of the city, out near the airport (which I noticed when I flew out of PDX in summer 2023 - I grew up equating landing at the Newark airport with the IKEA in Elizabeth!). While shopping, a major earthquake hits, cutting off electricity and creating all kinds of panic. Annie abandons her car (who knows where her keys, phone, purse, etc. are?) and starts the long walk into Portland, where her husband is working at a cafe. She knows he must be panicking about her and the baby. She has some interactions with people along the walk, as she treks past infrastructure damage and people who have not survived. The chapters alternate between Annie’s current journey and glimpses from the past, starting with long ago when she was in college and going up until the night before and morning of the quake, following her pregnancy journey closely.
Tilt will publish tomorrow, and I recommend it - although I can understand if you live in the Portland or surrounding west coast area, this read may hit a little too close to home. When I visited Portland with friends in 2023, we did a lot of walking around in different areas, and it was neat to recognize some of the neighborhoods, streets, bridges, etc. while reading. But I’m glad I don’t live close to a major fault line!

This was an interesting story and honestly don't know what to make of it... Was it all a nightmare, was it real? lots of unanswered questions at the end from my perspective., I thought the beginning was far better from the end and I felt like I was wandering aimlesslessy with the character.

In Tilt, Annie is having a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. First, she is nine months pregnant and feeling it. Second, she is in IKEA, a giant store, looking for a crib with her feet and back killing her. Third, a major earthquake hits forcing her to walk home without her car or purse. The good news is that the coffee shop where her husband works is closer, but still miles away, so she starts walking.

The plot splits into alternating timeframes between her and her husband’s pre-earthquake left and where she is now. She and her husband have some financial issues but appear to be surviving at least. But Annie does not feel fulfilled in her office cubicle job while still dreaming of becoming a playwright. Conversely, she is convinced her husband needs to give up his acting dreams to get a real career.

The most compelling part of Tilt is Annie’s current journey. You can tell the author has gone through pregnancy. Two according to the Acknowledgements. The descriptions of how a woman feels during pregnancy, no matter how disturbing, ring true. I felt like I was Annie throughout the novel, which is a great achievement considering the scenario Annie finds herself. I highly recommend Tilt. 5 stars!

Thanks to NetGalley and Marysue Rucci Books for providing me with an advanced review copy.

WOW! I went deep in Annie's world. Taking place over just one day, pregnant Annie grapples with the aftermath of a devastating earthquake while contemplating her life, her current relationship, her views on motherhood, the grief of losing her mother, and much more. It's truly astonishing how author Emma Pattee packed so much into such a limited number of pages. Thank you @netgalley @emmapattee @simonandschuster @marysueruccibooks for the ARC. #netgalley #netgalleyarc

a quick one day in the of a very pregnant woman, who when crib shopping at IKEA in Portland at 37 has her life upended when a major earthquake strikes. You follow Annie as she walks through the city trying to find her husband, and also learn about her life, and how she got to where she is now. The story flashes forward and back, and give you a lot to fear in the future.

Pre-Read notes

I was honestly smitten with the Title of this one, and that bird on the original cover. That image force my perspective to shift, I felt, and I was in for any story that did the same!

Final Review

My aliveness is beaming out of me, every pore shining with the fact that I’m alive. I’m so fucking alive I’m shaking. We’re alive, you and me, we’re alive, and that’s why I’m running now, running down the trail with my Birkenstocks flopping and my great misshapen belly straining to stay upright, p56

Review summary and recommendations

I admit I have an embarrassing weakness for disaster and survival stories, and this one is both. This completely miserable but totally memorable protagonist is a young pregnant woman who must survive a massive California earthquake and its aftermath.

The FMC of this book will probably be a terrible mother, but I love her as the protagonist of this story! I was rooting for her the whole way. I loved how this story's is unafraid to be hopeful in a high stakes and terrifying situation.

I recommend this to readers of thrillers, disaster stories, and action books. I also think fans of strong female characters, fast-paced reads, and mom narratives.

People have done harder things than this. People have been through worse than this. Nobody I know, but still, people. p162

Reading Notes

Seven things I loved:

1. My belly distended, a blimp exiting sideways out of my body. I walk in stiff little jerky motions like a stork. p6 Best description of pregnancy ever 🤣

2. Some really brilliant depictions of anxiety from first person POV. Her efforts don't feel forced or hurried, which is sometimes my experience of anxiety from first person. The details of her experience are perfectly fish-out-of-water.

3. The description of inflation over the last 30 years from first person is actually sort of harrowing to read. It's really brilliant writing!

4. Maybe we’re not telling the jokes, we are the joke. Now that we’re pregnant, we’re forced to be part of some enormous collective joke about women.... I really like how this author writes about being pregnant. It's so real and, yes, darkly funny, even given her circumstances.This would be a great joke: the pregnant woman who couldn’t just stay home like she was supposed to, like everybody else would have preferred, who couldn’t wait for the ambulance, who forgot to grab water, who lost her phone and purse and keys, who didn’t buy the whistle even after being told to buy the whistle, didn’t text her husband back, didn’t tell anyone where she was going, who couldn’t JUST WAIT. Who doesn’t even know if her baby is alive, even though she is a mother and a mother is supposed to FEEL THESE THINGS. I am the joke. That damn bra strap sliding down my arm over and over. p142

5. The thread of the plot is fascinating, both seemingly random and clearly the cohesive force of the story. Just excellent work on this unique form!

6. Throughout this brilliant disaster story, the fmc speaks in first person to her unborn baby. I don't always go for this kind of first/second person mashup, but it works really well here, becoming part of the character's internal monolog.

7. Some moving depictions of grief in this book, without going over the top. Hyperbole, in the few instances it arises, seems to be in response to the setting, which is unfriendly.

One thing I didn't love:

This section isn't only for criticisms. It's merely for items that I felt something for other than "love" or some interpretation thereof.

1. The confrontation in the opening scene feels theatrical to me. It's just a little too out of reach. But the scene is propulsive for sure. *edit honestly I think it was intentional for the author to do this, because she has some interesting development in for these two characters. You almost need this scene to establish the characters' grit.

Rating: 🪨🪨🪨🪨🪨 /5 pieces of rubble
Recommend? yes!
Finished: Mar 17 '25
Format: accessible digital arc, NetGalley
Read this book if you like:
☄️ disaster stories
🫄 mom stories
🏋🏻‍♀️ strong female characters
👩🏼‍🤝‍👩🏾 unlikely friends

Thank you to the author Emma Pattee, publishers MarySue Rucci Books, and NetGalley for an accessible advance digital copy of TILT. All views are mine.
---------------

This story follows a nine-month pregnant woman, Annie, in the aftermath of a catastrophic earthquake in Portland, OR and her journey through the devastated town in an effort to get to her husband. While she treks through town on foot, we follow Annie through a series of flashbacks of her relationship as she contemplates her life choices and pregnancy anxiety.

This was perhaps a slower paced read for me, but I enjoyed it. It felt dystopian even though it probably only effected the PNW. There were parts that were absolutely gut wrenching, particularly the present day portion of the book. Present day Annie is experiencing some very tense moments that go over the course of a single day. Her flashbacks show her weariness and cynicism throughout her life. To me, it represented her being a bystander in her own life.

I think this would make a decent book for a book discussion group. There are a lot of choices Annie made, both past and present, that you can pick apart. And you can analyze the author's depiction of how devastating the Pacific Northwest "Big One" could be.

Thank you to Simon Element / S&S / Marysue Rucci Books for this digital ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Tilt is a contemporary novel about a pregnant woman navigating a devastated Portland after an earthquake.

Annie is nine months pregnant and shopping for a crib at IKEA when the “big one” hits. Her only goal is to find her husband, miles away, in a city of leveled buildings, fallen bridges, and panicked residents. As she trudges, exhausted, through a broken city, she reflects on her life as a daughter, playwright, wife, and now anxious, expectant mother.

Emma Pattee has written a gripping novel about a woman struggling to find her partner in a world turned upside down. The post-earthquake landscape of Portland is realistic and gritty, showing people at their best and worst. Many readers will relate to Annie as she looks back on her failed artistic career, her husband’s struggles to make a living as an actor, their stretched finances, and her own fears about motherhood while mourning her own mother.

This is a tense and beautifully written novel that packs a lot of punch in under 250 pages.

I received this book as an ARC from NetGalley.

Tilt starts with a scary premise and keeps the reader in suspense throughout the book. At 9 months pregnant, Annie is in Ikea shopping for a crib for her yet-to-be born baby “Bean.” Just as she finds the one she wants, a major earthquake hits Portland, OR and changes her life. After escaping from the store, she begins walking to find her husband, with whom she has been having marital problems. As she plods through the devastation, she thinks about her current existence and how things could have been different and what will happen next.

Can anyone really be prepared for such a situation? What would you do? How would it affect your thoughts and your life?

WOW. Tilt is a propulsive, taut, discomfiting read - I was torn between my desire to find out what would happen next and my need to not stay up all night (both reading Tilt and researching earthquake prep because, boy, I do not want to find myself in Annie's shoes). I didn't *enjoy* this book per se, but I say that as a compliment - I was utterly immersed in her cracked-open world and deeply invested in her safe passage. While I was most engaged during the present-day timeline, I appreciated the reflections, and I was fully bought into the messiness and uncertainty of her relationship - it rang true. This book reminded me of The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton x The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I'm surprised it's a debut, and I look forward to recommending it to customers!

I really liked the description of this book and it instantly drew me in. The story follows Annie as she is heavily pregnant in the aftermath of “The Big One” - a huge earthquake that hits the west coast. Stranded at an IKEA, Annie has to navigate the streets of Portland to find her husband among the devastation of the earthquake.

I liked that the chapters went between Annie’s past and present so we could understand more about her and her circumstances. I don’t think she’s the most likable character, especially in her past, but the circumstances of her present made those less important to me. I wanted to see what happened to Annie and the characters she came across on the way. I wish we got more of the present times with the earthquake.

As I read and finished the book, I feel like it met most of my expectations but didn’t completely knock it out of the park. I wish there was a bit more of a suspense/thriller feeling to it. To me, the ending felt kind of abrupt and didn’t end the way I wanted, but overall I thought the book was fine. I didn’t love it but I didn’t hate it by any means.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the eARC!

I read this in a gulp. It moves back and forth in time- but is mainly focused on the present- to tell the story of Annie who has just thrown a fit in a Portland, Oregon Ikea when an earthquake hits. And she's 37 weeks pregnant. It's not just her trek across the city to get to her husband Dom but also her journey to where she is at this moment. A playwright with one production, she is now working a cubicle job while Dom continues to chase his acting dreams. They're living close to the edge, so much so that Annie wasn't sure about the pregnancy but now, walking through the nightmare, she's determined to protect the child she calls Bean. It's not just about Annie, though, it's also about some of the people she meets along the way. There's a poignancy to much of it. Pattee does a great job keeping up the tension and keeping you guessing. No spoilers. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. This was a great read.