“The authors do not hold back.” –Booklist (starred review) “The palpable desperation that pervades the plot…feels true, giving it a chilling air of inevitability.” –Publishers Weekly (starred review) “The Shustermans challenge readers.” –School Library Journal (starred review) “No one does doom like Neal Shusterman.” –Kirkus Reviews (starred review) When the California drought escalates to … (starred review)
When the California drought escalates to catastrophic proportions, one teen is forced to make life and death decisions for her family in this harrowing story of survival from New York Times bestselling author Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman.
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; neighbors 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.
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I love Neal Shusterman books and I did not doubt that this was going to be a good book and I love how much it shows how important things that are underestimated every day can make people show their true colors.
I love Neal Shustermann for his ripping prose, fast action, deep scares. There’s not a series he’s written I haven’t fallen in love with. This is no exception. This dystopian is so realistic, so about to happen, it was almost uncomfortable to read.
Set in a dry California, five different kids have to struggle to survive in a waterless apocalypse. The horror of dehydration and a slow government reaction to a man-made disaster really makes the plot effective. It would be too much if it weren’t for the kids voices which are hopeful and realistic. If this story were told by adults, it would be too much to bear. It almost is in some parts of this story.
Neal and Jarrod Shustermann have accomplished what all good dystopian fiction hopes to do. They shine a spotlight on human weakness and failings, while lighting a narrow path through to redemption. Once again, Shustermann reminds me why he’s one of my favorite authors. Read this book!
Another home run for this author who expertly extends current social events into dystopian futures to see what they might become. In Dry, we follow a group of mismatched kids who are desperate to find water in a version of California under severe drought and runaway fires. Having experienced a slight level of fear, mortal danger, and the unknown going through the COVID-19 pandemic, this story was very relatable as I could see our world turning into this creation of Shusterman and Shusterman very easily without a lot of fight. The issues of power struggle, guns and violence, and free enterprise are woven into this story in real life examples, showing that we never know who we truly are until we are pressed from within. What comes out can either scare us or unite us. Brilliant. Highly recommend.
Dry is a multi-point-of-view story about a drought in Southern California. I read about droughts before, but this book opened my eyes to so many issues that I would have never considered. Reading this amid the COVID-19 pandemic caused me to think about what people would do if our circumstances continued to deteriorate and supplies became scarce. Fear and the desire to live just seem to increase the plausibility of the events that occurred in the book. I enjoyed the plot, pacing, and characters. I must admit, the book’s start was slow to me and I almost put it off for “another day”, but I am glad I continued. There were things that I had questions about, Kelton’s family, neighboring states, and even the media, but the story followed a group of teens trying to navigate to safety, so I understood why I didn’t get those particular details. I really liked that there was not much romance, which is very prevalent in seemingly most YA reads. No, this story was about survival.
This was my first Shusterman book and it definitely will not be my last.
Overall: Totally Obsessed
Overall, I loved reading this book! It has such a great message and a wonderfully engaging plot. The characters were believable and pulled hard on your heart strings the entire time. I will caution you though, this book has some very disturbing images. So, with discretion, consider this book for your next read.
For my full review, please visit: https://www.krwardbookreview.com/
It’s easy to imagine a world where water is scarce thanks to the hard-hitting narration of Neal Shusterman. Timely and relevant to our current challenges of climate change, greed, and the politics of denial, DRY explores a scenario that, like all good science fiction, may foretell the future.
I was drawn immediately into the story and the different perspectives of the characters as they navigate their way through circumstances that bring out the worst and the best in people. DRY is a study in human nature demonstrating a wide spectrum of how various individuals react when fighting for survival and how they reveal their true selves. And behind it all is the looming question: Who can you trust?
News stories and outside points of view help fill out the picture of just how severe and unthinkable the water shortage is and how devastating the consequences.
It’s a powerful cautionary tale, skillfully written, with fascinating character development, disturbing climate change facts and a sense of foreboding. DRY is one of the best young adult sci-fi, cli-fi novels I’ve read, and I highly recommend it.
I could barely put it down, I finished it in less than a day. It was so well written and I loved it. It was so realistic, like it could happen any minute.
I bought this as a hard cover book for my son at Christmas and it sounded like something I’d enjoy as well so I was pleased when I found it on Audible as well. My son is only halfway through it, but he’s loving it as well. Dry shows how ordinary people can change in desperate times. When all the taps run dry and your family needs water to survive, what would you do? What lines are you willing to cross to ensure your survival? The coolest part of this story is that it is told from the perspective of teenagers, which is perfect for my 15 year old son. The narration is done by the authors and a full cast who all did an outstanding job!
I love Neal Shusterman! And when I saw that he wrote this novel with his son, I knew I had to read/listen to it. The story kicks off right at the beginning of the “Tap Out” when California runs dry of water and the chaos that soon follows. I really enjoyed all the main characters in this one. The sister-brother team and her neighbor start out on a journey to find their missing parents after the parents leave to go find water, then the journey becomes a road trip that picks up new people along the way to finding water for themselves. I have to say that listening to this story made me anxious. It’s like when I read Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer and I wanted to hoard canned goods and dried food. Now, I really want to hoard water. Lol. Anyway, I loved the ending to this story. I was on the edge of my seat until the climax! Neal Shusterman never lets me down.
(Audiobook edition)
Liked it very much. Moved along well and was scary because it could happen!