I just want to thank Dry right up front for making me the most hydrated person I have ever been.
I have never been so freaking thirsty in my life — and then I read this book and suddenly I consumed like 40 gallons of water in 350pages. I’M NOT JOKING. 10/10 this book will remind you to HYDRATE. Forget all those “drink 6 glasses a day” challenges, just read Dry and you will start crying over a tiny cup of water in gratitude.
Also I want to say a special thank you from my anxiety and I to Neal Shusterman, who makes me so traumatised in every. single. book. of. his. I. read. (I LOVE IT, NEVER CHANGE.)
I find it pretty awesome that this is a father-and-son collab novel too! It’s great to raise your children as writers! Although if I ever had kids I would 100% raise them as chefs so they could feed me while I write. But this is a tangent excuse me.
SOME THINGS YOU CAN EXPECT
★ your mouth being weirdly dry all of a sudden ok wow
★ an apocalyptic road trip with a bunch of teens who are NOT FRIENDS
★ you can imagine the shenanigans that are coming
★ such a realistic setting and plot…you can imagine it happening to you
★ people being severely messed up
★ america being a problem (usual tho)
★ no romance actually
★ a plot that’s constantly go go go
I really enjoyed this! In a…traumatic kind of way. The stakes are super high (find water vs die) and it throws us into a world where you can’t turn the tap on and take a drink. In fact, there is no water anywhere. Obviously humans need water to survive more than anything, so watching the universe spiral out of control so fast and viciously was both terrifying and absolutely realistic. This book is dedicated to climate change and, woahhhhh, it is such a slap in the face.We all need this slap. why did we break our planet
It has quite a lot of perspectives to capture the scope of the tragedy.
This is good because –> we see how WIDESPREAD it is. But it’s also bad because –> I never really connected to anyone?? I feel like the book was all about the plot/premise, and…not the characters.
But anyway! We have:
- Alyssa ~ her personality was honestly “being trustworthy” and while I liked her, I don’t feel like I knew her.
- Kelton ~ he’s the next-door-neighbour-kid that Alyssa always thought was creepy because his dad is an Apocayplse Prepper (before it even happened! cue their house being a fortress and they have generators/stocks of food and water and weapons etc). I reeeally liked Kelton. He’s very earnest and super awkward.
- Garret ~ he’s Alyssa’s 10yo little brother and kind of annoying because little siblings are ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- Jacqui ~ I swear she is the best thing ever. She gets tangled up in their journey due to circumstances, but she is TERRIFYING and will bite things. She has bitten, will bite again. And is secretly so soft™ so basically my favourite.
- Henry ~ he is a nasty little cunning piece of Slytherin. The actual slimiest. But I loved how he shook up the others’ story line and messed their dynamics up. He is intriguing and I hate him ahaha.
The plot was basically freak out –> travel –> lose hope –> keep travelling.
It’s very much action/adventure focused and it keeps things moving at a fearsome pace! I admit journey-plots aren’t my true love (I just wanna get there already) it kept my attention! It was so so taut. Is everyone going to die??? Is the world going to end??? I had no idea how to predict the ending! Shout out to how stressy the finale was! WOW.
It’s a good social commentary on how the world is today…and what it could become. And seeing it explore how depraved humanity can cave to so so fast is chilling. Like what would YOU DO FOR WATER if you were about to die?! There were so many chilling scenes too.
Basically this is the book will make you think and I love that about it.
AND IT MADE ME SO THIRSTY. That’s how vivid it was! It is more about the desperate race to get water and live as opposed to really developing the characters (it reminded me of the Gone series too) but it’s captivating and STRESSFUL and would recommend thoroughly!!
THANK YOU TO WALKER BOOKS AUSTRALIA FOR THE REVIEW-COPY. Dry by Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman is out October 2018!
★★★★☆
The drought—or the Tap-Out, as everyone calls it—has been going on for a while now. Everyone’s lives have become an endless list of don’ts: don’t water the lawn, don’t fill up your pool, don’t take long showers.
Until the taps run dry.
Suddenly, Alyssa’s quiet suburban street spirals into a warzone of desperation; neighbours and families turned against each other on the hunt for water. And when her parents don’t return and her life—and the life of her brother—is threatened, Alyssa has to make impossible choices if she’s going to survive.
Goodreads Book Depository Booktopia Walker Books
AWWW, THIS WAS A FATHER-SON COLLAB???? That’s so cute.
A book that makes me want to hydrate?? Heck yeah. Also, just Neal Shusterman in general. I am 100% down.
Isn’t it just?! I wonder how it’d go writing with your parent.😂It would drive me through the wall lmao. But yes! Drink! HYDRATE! Read! This book is so healthy tbh.
I probably should have preordered this book because I want to read it so bad! I love dystopias, and Neal Shusterman is one of my favorite dystopia writers. Great review! Hopefully I’ll get a chance to read it eventually.
He’s incredible right?! All his books I’ve tried are AMAZING.
I’m actually simultaneously get stressed about the idea of an apocalypse but also think I might react best under the situation. It would just through off my groove so badly I would fight to get it back as well as internally screaming and grieving the possible loss of internet and time to read.
I might try this one though I have a bad track record with dystopias and post apocalyptic. Like I adore Legend and The Maze Runner and the first Divergent book and sometimes The Darkest Minds if I’m in the mood (I liked book one but the books are like 500+ pages and book one had some boring parts so I like it but it’s dense) but everything else so far has failed me as much as humanity would fail me in the actual apocalypse. But I’ve never tried anything by Neal Shusterman so maybe he’ll be like that one human who actually helps in an end of world crisis and I won’t be die by his books?? I’ve heard only good things about Scythe so perhaps I should try this
Also, in case you don’t see my other comments cause they’re on old post that I commented on today but I’m not getting the post by email and I just had to catch up on a month’s worth of posts because I assumed you where on hiatus until I remembered you don’t use Goodreads on hiatus
*disappointed not die though some books have disappointed me and I died because of it (But then my next book resurrects me because it’s so good in comparison
Aww hi Frank!! Sorry about the email thing. 😭😭I’m missing chatting to SO many people because of this stupid email catastrophe. I’ve actually just installed a new widget so I’m hoping it might fix it…but I can’t tell if your email is on the list of ones I managed to salvage. 😭So you might need to sign up again? But fingers crossed that it works…I have a new post going up in like 6 hours so HOPEFULLY life will work for me for once gahhh. (Seriously this whole thing has stressed me out SO much.)
Anyway!! This book is absolutely going to stress you out! 😂I swear I kept going to check that my house still had running water lmao. And honestly I’m not the biggest apocalypse/dystopian fan these days either (I used to be though) so I’m super glad I loved this one. And Neal Shusterman is AMAZING. Definitely recommend !!! (My favourite books by him are probably Unwind and Challenger Deep!)
Reading this review made me thirsty wth Cait!! Sounds like a book that I usually won’t pick up because droughts but your review might have convinced me to buy it.
Also as a younger sibling it is my duty to tell you that younger siblings > older siblings.
Omg I hope you like it then!! It was SO hot and dry in my town when I was reading it…every time I paused and went out into the kitchen, I kept wanting to turn the tap on to make sure it still worked.😂
(I’m an older AND younger sibling and bleh they’re all annoying.😂)
Wow this story sounds really interesting and disturbing!! 😳😳 I’d like to give it a try sometime – and thinking about all the possible ways the world could spiral into destruction is really strangely cool! (Wow that sounds awful 😂) I can’t even imagine running out of water tho!!
Fabulous review- I’ll definitely try this one out sometime 😊
omg no I totally get that!! I kind of love it when people explore ideas on how the world will end!??😂Very morbid of us ahha.
OK – adding this one to the wishlist 🙂 I haven’t read a good “end of the world” in a while and this seems super angsty and tragic – I also like that there isn’t a romance as those things can be distracting for both reader and characters alike 🙂 Awesome review Cait!
Yesss, it’s totally worth it!! I hope you like it. DRINK LOTS OF WATER. AND DON’T READ IT DURING A DROUGHT.😂
Brilliant review, love! ❤️ I adore Shusterman with all my heart and am DYING to read this one! I just love the way he’s able to create plots that are chilling, but not too difficult to imagine happening to you!
Also your review has somehow MADE ME THIRSTY! Time to chug down some water! Hahahaha
He is like the MASTER of writing such chilling stories for sure!! I love it and they always make me think about them for so long afterwards?! DRINK WATER WHILE WE STILL CAN.😂
I got to hear Neal speak about this book on Saturday at the YA Lit Conference, and I am SO excited to read it now (not that I wasn’t before). He based it on the “72 Hours to Animal” theory, which basically shows that it would only take 72 hours for society to completely break down in a disaster situation. He says that everything that happens in the book is actually pretty possible, which makes it that much scarier!
Omg that’s so so awesome you got to meet him! And honestly I utterly believe society could collapse in 72 hours. It’s terrifying.
This sounds very interesting! I guess I’ll go ahead and add it to my ever growing mountain. Sigh.
My blog is the worst isn’t it 😂😂 HAVE FUN WITH MT TBR!
I mean, you are so right. NO ONE would be surprised if America droughted itself to death. No. One. Tbh, I’m more shocked that we haven’t. Tr*mp would be like, using literal cases of water to do… idk what is the most useless thing he could do with it? Make an in-office slip and slide? Sure, he’d do that, while people died. Then he’d blame someone else while everyone was fighting. Hell, he’d probably blame the people who were dying. “Bodies should have been stronger, their fault”. Erm, anyway, enough about next week.
But yeah I thought this was really good! Though I wanted it to be maybe just a little darker? But overall, I really liked it too- I couldn’t put it down!
omg America makes me so sad. 😭It’s true. Like if it happened, the media would probably all deny it and it’s so gross and messy and wrong. Sigh. IT’s like that scene out of Emperor’s New Groove when Yzma is like “You should’ve thought about that before you became peasants.” That is like…100% Trump. 😒
And yeah it could’ve been a touch darker haha. BUT ULTIMATELY GREAT OMG.
Girl, I have read Unwind by Neal Shusterman and now I really want to read more of his other works! I wanted to read some of his other books but I guess I don’t have that much time for them this year? Which is okay but I do have regrets since I read a lot of three star reads this year.
Unwind is SO GOOD and also so so disturbing ahhh. And I also totally recommend Challenger Deep if you get a chance!
I read that one last year! I found it interesting but mostly confusing I guess xD
The whole water thing reminds me of Not a Drop to Drink for some reason, the premise sounds quite similar even though I haven’t read that one either. But I adore Neal Schusterman’s writing, and I kind of love how this is a collab with his son as well! Also I got thirsty reading your review, so there’s that.