Title: We Speak Through The Mountain
Author: Premee Mohamed
Page Count: 143
Time Length:
Dates Read: 11/8
Format: Audiobook
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️
Summary: Alberta lives in a post-climate disaster world. Alberta lives in a world with little food and no water. Choice made to go for change. At the end of her journey, she ends up finding more questions then answers.

Review: I relieved this as a free advanced copy from netgally, my view is voluntary.

This was a little more detailed on how much they are lacking and how horrible life is. I liked Alberta even more in this one. Such a strong willed character.

I was so excited to read We Speak Through the Mountain by Premee Mohamed ever since it was announced that there would be a sequel to The Annual Migration of Clouds. You definitely need to read that one before reading this one. It’s a great follow up to learn about Reid’s journey to the university and her experiences there. I loved the post apocalyptic Alberta setting. I listened to the audiobook and the narrator Eva Tavares was excellent. I can’t wait for the third book in this series and I hardly ever read series!

I was glad to see that Mohamed was continuing what she started in The Annual Migration of Clouds. Having made her way to Howse University, Reid finds out that this community is vastly different from her own. The people here do not share. Reid wants to glean enough knowledge here to go back and make survival for her community easier, but finds that the comfort offered at at the university may be so seductive that one does not want to leave.

Mohamed has used her career in Environment to plot out a story that shows the sides that can emerge in a landscape touched by climate disaster.

This was a really solid follow up to The Annual Migration of Clouds and took the story in an interesting direction. I liked the change of setting and thought that the conspiracy element was a nice addition. Overall I enjoyed this second installment and will be eagerly awaiting the next one!
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.

An improvement on the first novella in this series. There was a lot more worldbuilding and some really important discussions on the morality of sharing knowledge and resources with the have-nots.

I also feel that Mohamed's writing has improved and her voice became clearer.

However, I find it really annoying that the first book was all about Reid fighting to get to the university, and once there she was ready to throw it all away so easily. I understand that she was facing a moral dilemma, but there was barely any deliberation over whether she was ready to give up everything she worked so hard for.

So, this book pretty much picks up right from where The Annual Migration of Clouds ended, so you absolutely must read that one before reading this one.

We have Reid making her way to the university where she has been accepted to study, traveling by bike and by foot over the Rocky Mountains (from Alberta to BC), while dealing with her chronic illness. She's an absolute wreck when she arrives and is in the infirmary for days before she is well enough to leave. While there, she is told that they have a medicine that will sort of bury the symptoms of her illness. So, as long as she takes the medicine, she will be symptom free.

But as she tries to make friends and do well in her classes, it becomes very clear that there is a divide between herself and the students who were born there. It is very much a story about an outsider trying to fit it, and not really succeeding.

Reid gets word that her mom's illness has gotten much worse and she needs to go home immediately, so she asks if she can have some of the medicine to make her mom feel better, and is told no. So she asks for painkillers, and is again told no. This really came across as a critique of capitalism and big pharma, hoarding life-saving medicines and only allowing those who they deem to be worthy of accessing them. As though the people who are living through the apocalyptic conditions that are the fallout of late stage capitalism and the climate crisis are somehow going to abuse these medicines.

There were definitely a lot of parallels to the current state of late stage capitalism that we are living in right now, when we look at the effects of climate change on the global south, and how because they're not offered the same opportunities that those in the global north are, they are more susceptible to disease, poverty, and exploitation. I think Mohamed is telling a really interesting and timely story with this series, and I am eagerly awaiting the next installment.

I was so excited to finally read the follow-up to The Annual Migration of Clouds and I thought this book was even better than her first! I couldn’t stop once I started this and thankfully it is just 141 pages so it was easy to devour in a short time.

Set in Canada this post-apocalyptic story is beautifully written. From the landscape to the personal growth, to the building of friendships there is so much packed into these pages. I loved it and can’t wait to read book 3!

Started listening to this and found myself not fully engaging. Upon checking goodreads I realised it's a sequel. I'm not sure if it's a direct sequel and perhaps the fact I haven't read the first one has meant I was confused and didn't understand or if it can be read on its own but I don't like to read things out of order if one is given so I will not be continuing and to be honest, from what I read of this one, I have no interest in trying the first. Just not for me

This was a really interesting story, I’m excited to read/listen to the rest of the series, and I’m not generally fond of Post-Apocalyptic stories
I also really enjoyed the narrator, she has a great voice and read the characters really well.

This was a very interesting and motivating read! The cover illustration is absolutely stunning, and drew me to the book right away. I was then startled to find the book dedicated to a Chelsea, and although it wasn't me it was fun to hear my name in the dedication. Then we move on to find out that the main character has my son's name! So of course I was smitten. But once I got beyond the basics, I found the writing to be compelling. The world building was very well done. I love that descriptions of the everything from their technology to their clothing. The descriptions of the region itself really painted a perfect picture of the mountains for me. I did not read the first book, but now I must! Premee Mohamed does such a beautiful job of weaving emotion with critical thinking, and builds just the right amount of tension between characters.

I don't know why I didn't realize this was a sequel. This is my third book by this author and I am so impressed by her world-building -- every book takes place in such a wildly different, specific world. This one is cli fi, and even though it's short, it's easy to get a sense of how bad things are. Reid is only 19 but making her way through this post-apocalyptic world with her challenges and dreams. There is excitement and the story is all right as a standalone but I'm really interested in finding out what happens next. The narrator was perfect for telling this unusual story. Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this.

The sequel to The Annual Migration of Clouds is even more stunning than the first.

What Came Before:
Post-apocalyptic, Canadian-based scifi-- this is climate fiction that takes place after the downfall of our current society.

In the first novella we became acquainted with the desperation of those living on the fringes and the lengths they go to to survive, as well as the fungal/parasitic/symbiont/antagonistic/often lethal entity known colloquially as "Cad" that resides in 20-100% of the human population.

Where We Start:
Now, having battled through hell -and putting all her faith in the chance that it truly exists- Reid has finally made it to Howse... only it both is and isn't the utopia she always imagined.

Scifi:
Not gonna lie, the descriptions of this world and the environment she has to adapt to greatly reminded me of the 2005 film The Island. Monochromatic clothing in which everyone looks the same, high technology, isolation from the rest of a post-apocalyptic world, and a sense of fragility and atrophy that comes from being so overly protected from the outside are all present and accounted for.

Themes:
But what most engaged me was the dichotomy between the more Capitalistic mindset of the haves and the more Socialist mindset of the have-nots; the way that the two butt heads because the core of their knowledge is so greatly different from one another that they're having completely parallel conversations. Without agreeing on the truths of the fundamentals, how can they ever convey their arguments and see eye to eye?

What Comes Next:
Based on that ending I imagine that this will not be the last in the series-- there is more of Reid's story still to be told. But I really loved this one and can't wait to read the next installment.

Note: I think you could mostly understand through context clues the major plot beats of the novella that preceded this one and read this as a standalone, but the most emotional depth will come from having read both chronologically.

Side note: How cute are those whiskeyjacks on the cover? Apparently they're an adorable (and sneaky, thieving, devious) corvid species native to Canada (and part of the story!).

Audiobook Notes:
I enjoyed this audiobook, and especially how the narrator voiced the accent discrepancies as the main character was realizing them between herself and the Howse kids.

A fantastic dystopian novella follow up to her debut collection of stories that had me invested from the start and unable to stop listening. Great on audio and perfect for fans of authors like Cherie Dimaline, this was thought-provoking and easily immersive and I can't wait for more! Also can we just mention what AMAZINGLY gorgeous covers both Premee's books have? I am absolutely OBSESSED!! Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital and audio copy in exchange for my honest review!