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Summary
Summary
"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 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.
Author Notes
Neal Shusterman was born in Brooklyn, New York on November 12, 1962. He received degrees in psychology and drama from the University of California, Irvine. Within a year of graduating, he had his first book deal and a screenwriting job. He has written numerous books including The Dark Side of Nowhere, Red Rider's Hood, The Shadow Club, The Shadow Club Rising, The Eyes of Kid Midas, Shattered Sky, Unwind, and Antsy Does Time. He won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature in 2015 for Challenger Deep. He also writes several series including the Skinjacker Trilogy, the Star Shards Chronicles, and the Unwind Dystology. As a screen and television writer, he has written for the Goosebumps and Animorphs television series, and wrote the Disney Channel Original Movie Pixel Perfect.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (6)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In Neal Shusterman (Thunderhead) and son Jarrod's near-future or alternate-present America, a prolonged drought ("the Tap-Out") results in the sudden curtailment of Southern California's water supply. When their parents vanish while seeking desalinated water, 16-year-old Alyssa and 10-year-old Garrett embark on a harrowing journey, searching for their parents and fending for themselves as society deteriorates. Along the way, the siblings pick up three teens: their survivalist neighbor Kelton, unpredictable lone wolf Jacqui, and calculating opportunist Henry. This thriller alternates between the teens' distinct and plausible viewpoints, occasionally supplementing with brief "snapshots" of others (a fleeing family, a news anchor) dealing with the escalating catastrophe. The dynamic core-character relationships are satisfying, and the intersection of their narrative with the snapshots adds depth to briefly glimpsed characters and illuminates the full scale of the disaster. The lack of warning before the long-looming crisis breaks may require some initial suspension of disbelief, but the palpable desperation that pervades the plot as it thunders toward the ending feels true, giving it a chilling air of inevitability. It is also thoroughly effective as a study of how extreme circumstances can bring out people's capacity for both panic and predation, ingenuity and altruism. Ages 12-up. Agent: Andrea Brown, Andrea Brown Literary. (Oct.) c Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
A major drought in Southern California has been going on long enough for people to adjust, with everyone conserving as much water as possible. But one day Alyssa turns on the faucet in her suburban home, and nothing comes out. Suddenly, with this new stage of the drought (which the media calls the Tap-Out), everyone is scrambling, and Alyssas neighborhood becomes more dangerous. Alyssas neighbor Kelton McCracken, a weirdo teen who lives with his family of doomsday preppers, has always wanted to have a reason to interact with Alyssa, but the Tap-Out creates a scenario he could never have imagined. As people become increasingly desperate for water and institutions begin to break down, the thread between selfishness and survival begins unraveling as ethical dilemmas present themselves around sharing water, selling water, and deciding who is worthy of saving. Alyssa, her brother Garrett, and Kelton wind up on a road trip to survive, picking up strangers along the way who may or may not be allies. Throughout this compulsively readable and unnerving tale, the authors present a dystopia that is all-too-close to our current world, leading readers to realize just how tenuous our societal norms are and raising important questions about how we will handle the crises we have created. christina l. dobbs (c) Copyright 2018. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Alyssa and her brother, Garrett, are normal kids in a suburb in Southern California that is, until surrounding states shut the floodgates to the Colorado River due to prolonged drought. At first, people dismiss the news, but circumstances turn dire quickly when bottled water disappears off store shelves while the spigots remain dry. What ensues is a horrifyingly fast descent into barbarity as neighbor turns on neighbor, government intervention falls short, and society's civil facade disintegrates. Alyssa and Garrett must travel to find new sources of water, all the while defending themselves against people crazed by thirst. While this book leans on siege-like tropes established in zombie movies, the Shustermans revivify the genre by adding an environmental twist. Using multiple points of view, the authors fully flesh out Alyssa, Garrett, and their travel companions to showcase the various ways people mentally approach calamities. The authors do not hold back there is death, disease, manipulation, and chaos. None of it is presented simply, and none of it is sugarcoated. Lovers of horror action fiction will feel right at home with this terrifyingly realistic story of our tenuous relationship with the environment and of the resilience of the human spirit in the face of desperate situations. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: With the elder Shusterman on a roll with Challenger Deep (2015) and Scythe (2016), this collaboration will be supported by a tour, festival promotion, and more.--Reinhardt Suarez Copyright 2018 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
FREDERICK DOUGLASS: Prophet of Freedom, by David W. Blight. (Simon & Schuster, $37.50.) Blight's monumental biography describes the context that enabled an escaped slave to become an adviser to President Lincoln and one of the 19th century's greatest figures. Unlike Douglass's own autobiographies, it also recounts his complex relationships with the women in his life. THE SOULS OF YELLOW FOLK: Essays, by Wesley Yang. (Norton, $24.95.) Three essays in this collection mine the question of Asian-American identity. Yang emphasizes the invisibility he often feels, and tries to enter the minds of people like Seung-Hui Cho, who killed more than 30 people at Virginia Tech in 2007. THE LETTERS OF SYLVIA PLATH: Volume 2, 1956-1963, edited by Peter K. Steinberg and Karen V. Kukil. (HarperCollins, $45.) This volume, which spans the period of Plath's marriage until her death, includes more than a dozen letters to her therapist, revealing the hurt and humiliation that fed her final, furious poems. THE NOVEL OF FERRARA, by Giorgio Bassani. Translated by Jamie McKendrick. (Norton, $39.95.) Best known for "The Garden of the Finzi Continis," Bassani retrofits his novellas and stories into a sprawling portrait of an Italian Jewish community destroyed by the historical hatreds unleashed by World War II. INKLING, by Kenneth Oppel. Illustrated by Sydney Smith. (Knopf, $17.99; ages 8 to 12.) The son of a creatively blocked artist tries to work with a magical ink blot to help his dad, but the blot has a mind of its own in this astonishing novel about how we make art and connect with family. THE WALL IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BOOK, written and illustrated by Jon Agee. (Dial, $17.99; ages 4 to 8.) A brick wall lies in the middle of each spread in this deceptively simple picture book. A young knight is glad to be protected from the scary stuff on the other side, until a flood carries him over and he sees that there's nothing to fear, and plenty of fun. NOWHERE BOY, by Katherine Marsh. (Roaring Brook, $16.99; ages 10 to 14.) In this hopeful, elegant novel, a Syrian teenager escaping the civil war that killed his family makes it to Brussels, where he befriends a lonely American boy who finds a way to hide and support him for nine months. DOOR, by JiHyeon Lee. (Chronicle, $17.99; ages 4 to 8.) This remarkable wordless picture book bursts with buoyant energy as a boy finds the key to a long-unopened door and makes his way from drabness to a joyful, magical land. DRY, by Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman. (Simon & Schuster, $18.99; ages 12 and up.) This propulsive action thriller, set at a time when Southern California has run out of water, explores the price of our collective blindness to impending climate disasters. The full reviews of these and other recent books are on the web: nytimes.com/books
School Library Journal Review
Gr 9 Up-The Tap-Out, the government's friendlier name for the drought, has been in effect for a while. The inability to water one's lawn or take a long shower was a nuisance until the water stopped permanently. With the fear of no water, people fight over bottles at Costco, they mug one another on the streets, and arm themselves for fear of break-ins. As her town becomes a war zone, Alyssa's parents set out to retrieve emergency water from the government-but when they don't return, Alyssa, her 10-year-old brother Garret, and their neighbor Kelton go to locate them, only to find dead bodies on the beach and no sign of her parents. They start heading to Kelton's family emergency bunker, slowly realizing their corner of California is becoming obsolete. Although this novel has an apocalyptic tone, the subject matter is timely and realistically possible. The Shustermans challenge readers to ponder what they would do in a similar crisis. While Alyssa remains positive and fights for survival, Kelton's doomsday prep mode kicks in, and he often tries solving problems with weapons. This survival tale is packed with themes and allegories that will attract fans of literary YA as well as readers seeking a good adventure. VERDICT A perfect choice for all collections.-Dawn Abron, Zion-Benton Public Library, IL © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
When a calamitous drought overtakes southern California, a group of teens must struggle to keep their lives and their humanity in this father-son collaboration.When the Tap-Out hits and the state's entire water supply runs dry, 16-year-old Alyssa Morrow and her little brother, Garrett, ration their Gatorade and try to be optimistic. That is, until their parents disappear, leaving them completely alone. Their neighbor Kelton McCracken was born into a survivalist family, but what use is that when it's his family he has to survive? Kelton is determined to help Alyssa and Garrett, but with desperation comes danger, and he must lead them and two volatile new acquaintances on a perilous trek to safety and water. Occasionally interrupted by "snapshots" of perspectives outside the main plot, the narrative's intensity steadily rises as self-interest turns deadly and friends turn on each other. No one does doom like Neal Shusterman (Thunderhead, 2018, etc.)the breathtakingly jagged brink of apocalypse is only overshadowed by the sense that his dystopias lie just below the surface of readers' fragile reality, a few thoughtless actions away. He and his debut novelist son have crafted a world of dark thirst and fiery desperation, which, despite the tendrils of hope that thread through the conclusion, feels alarmingly near to our future. There is an absence of racial markers, leaving characters' identities open.Mouths have never run so dry at the idea of thirst. (Thriller. 13-17) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Dry SNAPSHOT: JOHN WAYNE Dalton loves the way planes take off from John Wayne Airport. It's a real trip. They call it a "modified noise abatement takeoff," and it was specifically implemented to spare Newport Beach millionaires from having to deal with airport noise. Basically, the plane powers up on the runway with its brakes on, then accelerates at full force into a ridiculously steep takeoff, followed ten seconds later by a sudden leveling off and throttling down of the engines, which sounds, to the uninitiated, like engine failure, causing at least one person on every flight to gasp, or even scream in panic. The plane then coasts out over the back bay, Balboa Island, and the Newport Peninsula before the pilot pushes the engines back to full and resumes the climb-out. "They oughta call it John Glenn instead of John Wayne," Dalton once said--because taking off from there was the closest most people would ever get to blasting off into space. Dalton and his younger sister are regular flyers, visiting their dad, who lives up in Portland, a few times a year--Christmas, Easter, most of the summer, and every other Thanksgiving. Today, however, it's not just the two of them traveling north. Their mother is coming, too. "If your dad won't put me up, I'll be happy to stay in a hotel," she says. "He won't make you do that," Dalton tells her, but she doesn't seem too sure. A few years back, Dalton's mom had left him for a loser with nice pecs and a soul patch, who she subsequently kicked to the curb a year later. Live and learn. Anyway, when the marriage went south, his dad went north. "You understand this is not about your father and me getting back together," she tells Dalton and his sister, but for kids of divorce, hope springs eternal. Within minutes of the Tap-Out, his mom had gone online and bought three overpriced tickets on Alaska Air--one of the few airlines that flies nonstop to Portland on a plane that you didn't have to get out and push. "Last three tickets," she told them triumphantly. "You've got an hour to pack. Carry-ons only." The trip to the airport is bumper-to-bumper. What should be a fifteen-minute ride takes almost an hour. The parking situation at John Wayne is the first indication that there's going to be turbulence up ahead. All but one parking structure says FULL. They get one of the last remaining spaces at the far end of the last lot. As they make their way to the terminal, Dalton notes all the cars circling, like it's a huge game of musical chairs, with no chairs left. The TSA checkpoint is a madhouse, which never happens here. "A lot a people are going on vacation," Dalton's seven-year-old sister, Sarah, says. "Yes, honey," their mom responds absently. "Where do you think they're going?" Their mom sighs, too stressed to continue humoring her, so Dalton looks at the boards, and takes up the slack. "Cabo San Lucas," he says. "Denver, Dallas, Chicago . . ." "My friend Gigi's from Chicago." The security guy double takes on Dalton's passport, because his hair is brown in the photo, but now it's bleached blond. "You sure this is you?" "Last time I checked," Dalton responds. The humorless TSA guy lets them get into the slow-moving crawl to the metal detector, which has issues with his facial rings. Finally they make it through security with just five minutes until boarding starts. Mom is relieved. "Okay," she says. "We're here. We haven't lost anyone. No missing fingers or toes." "I'm thirsty," Sarah says, but Dalton has already noticed that the concessions they passed all had NO WATER signs up. "There'll be something to drink on the plane," their mother says. Dalton thinks that might actually be true. After all, these planes all came from somewhere else. And he is getting a bit thirsty himself. Then, just as they're about to start boarding, the gate agent comes on the loudspeaker and makes an announcement. "Unfortunately, we're oversold on this flight," she says. "We're asking for volunteers with flexible travel plans who are willing to take a later flight." Sarah tugs her mother's arm. "Mommy, volunteer!" "Not this time, baby." Dalton grins. Dad always tells them to volunteer because they give away hundreds of dollars in travel vouchers, which is always worth the inconvenience. But not today. Today it's all about getting out. Which is why they have trouble getting volunteers. The price of the vouchers goes from two hundred dollars to three hundred to five hundred dollars, and still no one is willing to surrender their ticket. Finally the gate agent gives up. She gets on the loudspeaker, calling the names of the last people to buy tickets. Dalton, Sarah, and their mother. Dalton feels a twisting in the pit of his stomach. "I'm sorry," says the gate agent, not sounding sorry at all, "but as the last to purchase, I'm obliged to reschedule you to a later flight." Dalton's mom goes ballistic, and he can't blame her. This is one time they need to fight the Powers That Be. "No," says their mom. "I don't care what you say! My children and I are getting on that plane!" "You'll each receive a five-hundred-dollar travel voucher--that's fifteen hundred dollars," the agent says, trying to placate them. Their mom will not be bought. "My children have court-ordered visitation with their father," she yells. "If you take them off this flight, you'll be breaking the law, and I'll sue!" Of course, this isn't their father's time with them, but the agent doesn't know that. Even so, all the agent does is apologize, and look for later flights. "There's a flight tonight at five-thirty. . . . Oh wait, no, that one is full, too. . . . Let's see." She continues to hack away at her computer. "Eight-twenty . . . no . . ." Then Dalton turns to his sister and whispers, "Give her the eyes." Their mom had always told both Dalton and Sarah that their big blue eyes could melt anyone into a puddle. Not so much Dalton anymore. At an awkward seventeen, a bunch of facial piercings, a biohazard neck tattoo, and what his father calls "weed-whacked hair," the general public isn't melted anymore. Only seventeen-year-old girls. But Sarah still has the magical melting effect on hardened adults. So he lifts her up for the agent to get a good look at her. "Aw, you're cute as a button," she says. Then rips three new tickets from the printer. "Here you go--tomorrow morning at six-thirty. That's the absolute best I can do." So they wait. They don't leave, because the crowd just grows, and they know they'll never get back through security. They spend the night sleeping in uncomfortable airport chairs, getting sips of water from anyone who'll share with them, and there aren't many. Then, when morning comes, even with confirmed tickets, there's no room on the six-thirty flight for them. Or the next one. Or the next one. And they can't get tickets to flights to other places. And the airport gets so crowded that extra police are brought in to keep the peace. And with traffic jams everywhere, trucks with jet fuel can't get to the airport. And Dalton, his mother, and sister have to face the fact that they won't be blasting off anywhere. Excerpted from Dry by Neal Shusterman, Jarrod Shusterman All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
