A beautiful depiction of the end of the world as we know it. The High House is joining the ranks of Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy and After the Flood by Kassandra Montag with some of the most realistic descriptions of how human neglect and prevention will change everything.

While we know from the beginning that the High House is going to be what ultimately saves the main characters, the how is the main focus of the story.

Beautifully interwoven between the young women, Caro and Sally, who survive with their brother and grandfather respectively, we see how they struggle and lean on each other when climate change changes their lives forever.

Caro and her half-brother Pauly escape to the safe haven of the High House that unbeknownst to them has been restored to it's former glory. Caro's stepmother is a world-renowned climate change scientist and activist, but after the birth of her son, Pauly, she and the children's father begin to leave the children at home for long periods of time in order to persuade someone, anyone that actions need to be taken.

Sally has grown up in the coastal village with her grandfather, Grandy, her whole life. The changing of the seasons brings with it the influx of vacationers to their little village. But in the end, it will be her and Grandy, just as it always was. Grandy, who with he knowledge is able to teach Sally and Caro how to care for the land to be able to survive.

This is not a story about the end of the world. It's a story about how we get there and the things we end up clinging to. When what's left at the end is fighting off the hunger and the cold. Just a battle for existence.

Beautifully and hauntingly told. This is a slow-burn kind of book. Something I know is going to deter certain readers is the non-traditional use of chapters, although I enjoyed that everything was told in small chunks. Also the non-linear way the story is told, the fact that in one paragraph can be in present and past tense some readers are going to be thrown off by. I had to reread certain portions just to be sure I understood correctly.

Things that bothered me: the reader is never explicitly told how much time has passed between the flood and the "present". We are told the Pauly is an adult, but that is it. Also, if Francesca thought of so much, why didn't they have a few cows or goats? I feel like that would have solved al lot of the milk/butter things that ran out of, but maybe it would have been much more work to provide food for those animals? I don't know because it was never brought up in the book!

The High House//Jessie Greengrass
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"We noticed the changes, but we dismissed them, or said that they were only a part of the inevitable, because doesn't the world always change, one way or another?
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Set during an environmental apocalypse, four people attempt to make a home in a house perched atop a hill by the sea.
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Set in what feels like the not too distant future, The High House is part cli-fi, part family drama - so, absolutely perfect for me. It's split up into 5 parts and told from the perspective of three people throughout different periods of time. Before the "end of everything," during and after.
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I seem to be reading a lot of books about parenthood right now and the sacrifice(s) you make to bring them into the world, keep them safe and happy. I was particularly reminded while reading this of an essay from All We Can Save: Truth, Courage and Solutions for the Climate Crisis. It's called Mothering in the Age of Extinction. As someone who' often thinks about whether it's safe or fair to bring another person into the world - I felt seen in the essay and connected with one of the characters as she tried to find a place for her young son to survive the climate crisis.
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The High House was a quiet destruction of my soul, unlike the very, very loud changes that are happening to our planet now. If this book doesn't leave you crying on the floor, I would like to have a word.

The HIgh House is such a fantastic book. The characters are so well-written, that you really do come to care for them and worry for their survival. The atmosphere was stressful which kept me reading for hours. I had to know what happened next. I think that it being about climate change and the consequences that have finally arrived, really works. This book is perhaps a look at what will happen in the coming years, actually, it is probably exactly like what will happen. There are so many good observations and thoughts. I really hated to see the story end. I think it is a spectacular book by a super talented author.

I love a good post-apocalypse book, it’s why I signed up to read this as an ARC.

It has a nice prose style. The author is clearly a fine writer. But it's not really post-apocalyptic fiction and it's not deep or thinky, like it seems to want to be. It's very surfacy and everyone's interactions are extremely limited. The people as shown have zero internal lives and in their surfacy lives, they're mostly selfish. It's like reading a script.

It’s not a bad book, exactly. It's not badly written. It reads nicely.

But if you like competent characters acting in competent ways who still have bad things happen to them from forces beyond their control...This is not that. It’s incompetent, entitled characters having bad things happen to them and they feel sorry for themselves about it. It made me actively angry.

I’m sure other people, who like sad, elegiac musings on things lost will eat it up with a spoon. But I spent the entire thing wanting to smack the shit out of every character and boggling at the complete and utter stupidity of a post-apocalyptic CLIMATE CHANGE novel that is set at the seaside. Because that’s where I’d go in a world where water levels are meant to rise 3% overall and all coastal areas are in jeopardy for flooding and salt seepage into the water table. Yeah, that makes total sense.

My family is from the middle of a national forest, one of the most remote areas in the United States. I have lived without power for days and weeks at a time after huge storms knock trees down on power lines. I have helped grow and harvest and preserve food in land unsuitable for farming where everyone still had massive lush gardens full of surplus despite constant threats from deer, raccoons and the like. I have gathered wild foodstuffs. I have fished for the table. Other family members have hunted. I have had to travel miles to a spring to get drinking water. I have cut wood to heat the house. I have had to heat bathing water on a wood stove. I knew better how to care for myself than anyone in this novel when I was 10. It is offensively stupid to be this ill-prepared for disaster to anyone who has ever lived in a remote area.

And the preparations listed in this novel by the supposed climate change scientist with loads of cash do include things like seasonal clothes for a certain amount of time into the future – but not enough. Toys for her child as he grew. A small boat for fishing. A means of generating limited tidal electricity but no solar panels or small wind power – because there’s never a breeze or sunshine at the SEASHORE or anything. I mean solar panels are cheap and plentiful as are small wind turbines. FFS. You need that and an inverter and batteries. One wood stove for an entire house and it doesn’t have a boiler feature to make hot water. The dumbass list goes on and on. Where’s the library of How To books? Where are the extra seeds in case of crop failure?

There are chickens, but no goats or sheep. I can see how a cow might be too hard on limited resources, but goats for milk and cheese and meat and sheep for wool and meat only make sense especially as it is stated there is pasture available. I mean, it’s ENGLAND, there are more sheep than people in some areas. Get some damned sheep at least.

Instead, they’re eating up all the chickens and huddling around the single stove in constant cold. And no one seems to hunt or fish for anything, either, though they do get shellfish from the beach.

But again, what are they doing by the seaside in the first place? This book offends me on pure lack of common sense even though the author makes a stab at explaining why the (remote) area was chosen.

And everyone’s passive acceptance of their fate and musings about do they deserve to survive and which one will be the last one as they slowly starve from their own bad planning and incompetence just makes me want to smack them all. They don’t deserve to survive with those attitudes. They can’t die soon enough.

But again, many will enjoy this book because of its elegiac tone and wistful, passive contemplation of impending climate doom in a place they should have gotten away from to permanent (remote) high ground. But honestly, if this were to actually happen nearly anyone would be better prepared and able to survive.

THE HIGH HOUSE is a quick yet contemplative read about a climate disaster that feels eerily plausible. The story follows orphans Pauly and Caro, and their newfound caretakers, Sally and Grand. To escape the inevitably encroaching waters they seek safety in the High House, a retreat in the English countryside.

A creeping dread permeates the story as the waters around them begin to rise. An alarmed minority attempts to warn others long before the disaster peaks, but their concerns fall on deaf ears. This story is quietly terrifying because it feels entirely reasonable in a not-so-distant future. It forced me to consider what I would do with my family in a dire climate situation.

Although this is a quick read, it's one that has staying power. I’ll be thinking about this one for a long time. The HIGH HOUSE would make an excellent book club selection as thought-provoking conversations are plentiful.

RATING: 4/5
PUB DATE: January 4, 2022

A big thank you to @scribnerbooks and @netgalley for the complimentary ARC!

This story is set in the not to distant future, in Suffolk.
A female climate scientist and her husband, secretly work to prepare their old High House which is on a bluff.. with a vegetable garden, windmill, tide pool, generator, a boat..
in the barn they have stockpiled clothes, toys, medicines, supplies which will be needed during the upcoming foreseen environmental crisis, flooding being the main concern.
They also enlist the help of a neighbor who is an old man who along with his granddaughter will move into the high house to help care for the couples teen daughter and very young son.
This was beautifully written and told in the voices of the three younger people who live in the high house!
Very good!
This novel was shortlisted for the 2021 Costa Novel Award

Thank you to Netgalley and Scibner for the ARC

The High House is a quick contemporary read set in the not-too-distant future in the midst of the climate crisis. This book did a really great job of encapsulating both the anxiety of climate change but also our ability as humans to turn our heads and dismiss the signs around us. This was a really beautiful novel about family, circumstances beyond out control, and the choices we make to keep those we love safe.

I will say that this book made me feel anxious about the climate crisis, knowing that the events in this book could and likely will happen in our future. But I also think this book gives voice to that anxiety we all face and forces us to confront the moments we try to ignore, the signs the earth is trying to give us. It has invigorated me to educate myself and do my part to give life on earth the best chance at survival.

The world has turned to water and Caro, Pauly, and Sal are marooned at High House. This is the story of how they got there- how Caro's stepmother Francesca saw problems ahead and created a place of refuge for Caro and Pauly (mostly for Pauly). It's also the story of Sal and her grandfather, who lived in the village and moved to the High House at Francesca's request. There isn't a clear time line to this (it's a little murky in spots as to how old everyone is and where they are in the continuum) but it still packs a punch more because of the characters than because of the environmental disaster. Caro has devoted herself to Pauly and is devastated by the death of her father and Francesca. Sally is the most pragmatic of the three, the one who keeps everyone going. Grandy is wise but dimming due to illness. Pauly is too young, frankly, to have much personality (although he loves birds); there are hints, however that he has grown to a wise and useful age. The writing is wonderful and the imagery, while sad and distressing in spots comes through loud and clear. Thanks to the publisher for the ARC. A valuable read.

Wow. This is a tough book to read. On the one hand, I loved it. I loved the immersive writing and got sucked right into their story. I so felt for Caro as she comes to realize her stepmother doesn't love her and her brother as much as she does her advocacy. But in the end, she benefits from it, because she and Pauly get to live. This book took me much longer to read than I might have liked, but it really did get me to feel. It's sad all around and brought me down, but only in its authenticity.

It’s been a long, long time since I’ve read a book that I wanted to take my time reading because the prose was simply so beautiful and well-written I found myself sometimes re-reading passages a couple of times (or even whole sections) simply for the joy of it.

“The High House” has a print length of only 268 pages, but it’s not a book you’ll want to plow through. It’s a book you’ll want to take your time with. It’s not that the book demands that of you, like some books do, it’s that you won’t want to read this book quickly. Greengrass knows how to weave sentences that feel like spells and paragraphs that feel like poetry instead of prose. I found myself constantly stopping to highlight sentences and sometimes whole passages just so I could come back to them for reference later.

“The High House” juggles first-person POV narrative (in the past-tense) between three of the book’s four main characters: Caro, Pauly (Caro’s half-brother), and Sally (one of the two caretakers at High House). The fourth main character is Grandy, Sally’s grandfather and the other caretaker of High House. High House is a summer home belonging to Pauly’s mother (and Caro’s stepmother) that is set up on a sloping hill on the coast of England among arable soil and near a tide pool. When our book starts, global climate change is already well on the way to its ultimate tipping point, and Pauly’s mother is one of the fiercest and foremost advocates for fighting against climate change. As we switch between Sally and Caro’s narrative viewpoints, we can see Caro battling with having to raise Pauly essentially by herself even though she hasn’t even finished her own schooling and Sally dealing with this strange woman constantly being around, conversing and working with her grandfather for days and weeks at a time before she disappears randomly again until the day she comes and tells them she is retaining them to become caretakers of High House for the foreseeable future and to help ensure her son and stepdaughter are kept safe when they someday show up. And show up they do, when an extreme weather event with no name or category for it hits the US and Pauly’s mother calls just before it hits to tell Caro to leave London first thing in the morning and go to High House.

Greengrass does a great job of grafting distinct narrative voices for Caro, Sally, and Pauly, so you always know whose narrative voice you’re reading. Pauly doesn’t remember a time before High House, so High House and its surrounding environs, Caro, Sally, and Grandy are all he knows. Sally is older than Caro, more set in her ways and used to everything being the way she likes it, and while it breaks her heart to see how many people are hurting in the middle of this huge climate disaster she is pragmatic enough to swallow it down and compartmentalize it for the sake of the people in her life. Caro is afraid, all the time. And when Caro isn’t afraid, she’s resentful of her stepmother or feeling guilty about having more than other people in the world have. She knows her stepmother planned this home out and how privileged that makes all of them.

This book doesn’t go by chapters. It is parsed into parts and then into the switching POVs, and then into subparts. But I think that chapters would’ve ruined the flow of the text anyway. Either that, or I wouldn’t have even noticed, given how entranced I was by the flow of the words and the elegance of the sentences.

If you’re a fan of beautiful books full of beautiful sentences, I highly recommend this book. If you’re a fan of books that feel sad, beautiful, and tragic (do not cue Taylor Swift right now), then I highly recommend this book. If you want to read a lovely, elegiac book about what life might look like after the tipping point of global climate change, then I recommend this book.

I just recommend this book. Highly. Overwhelmingly. Go read it.

The High House was beautiful and frightening all at once. I have never read environmental literary fiction before, so this was a new and welcome experience for me. Greengrass wrote this story in such a way that I completely believe the events in this book could happen next year, next month tomorrow. She made me a believer.

This was a beautifully written novel, while slow burning throughout an atmospheric post apocalyptic world. This book didn't have a big build, or sharp story arch and sometimes that is ok, Sometimes you're just on a journey with the author like a snap of a memory told in intricate detail. I enjoyed this book, a lovely and understated display of story telling. Thank you so much to Scribner and NetGalley for an ARC of this book.

Despite the early rave reviews, I just couldn't get into this one. I do believe if I could have spent some uninterrupted time with it, it would have hit different, but due to my weird reading issues right now (pandemic?), I just couldn't find my groove. I felt like the set up was way too long to keep and hold my attention.

“Perched on a sloping hill, set away from a small town by the sea, the High House has a tide pool and a mill, a vegetable garden, and, most importantly, a barn full of supplies. Caro, Pauly, Sally, and Grandy are safe, so far, from the rising water that threatens to destroy the town and that has, perhaps, already destroyed everything else. But for how long?”

This novel is not a hopeful tale of survival against the odds. It is a realistic and subtly terrifying glimpse into what comes before and after survival. We feel the bleak expectation of what it will be like to continue to survive. Never to thrive again, but keep planting one damp foot in front of the other.

More of the book is about the BEFORE than the AFTER. We know the AFTER is coming, but Greengrass uses her pages to bring us inside the characters. We feel Caro’s survivor’s guilt, worry about her baby brother Pauly, and anger with no outlet. We are allowed only tiny glimpses into Pauly’s mind – he’s only a child, and too young/protected to comprehend events—but we see is poignant. Sally is the caretaker of their hilltop “ark,” and we feel her frustration with her charges at odds with her fiercely protective nature. She and her grandfather must get Caro and Pauly through the extinction-level climate change disaster.

“The whole complicated system of modernity which had held us up, away from the earth, was crumbling, and we were becoming again what we had used to be: cold, and frightened of the weather, and frightened of the dark.”

I recommend it, as long as you go in prepared. This is no Swiss Family Robinson.

Pub Date; Jan 4, 2022. Thanks, NetGalley and Scribner, for a digital review copy.

Quite good and somewhat timely. This has good characters and kept me engaged. This isn't a flashy novel, but a good one. Recommended.

Thanks very much for the ARC for review!!

I was blown away by the atmosphere of this novel, the beauty it displayed through words. It does not have such a dour nihilistic tone in its themes which I appreciate. It keeps the whole experience more enjoyable.

This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang but a whimper." (T.S. Elliot)

An oddly gentle end-of-the world story. We see climate change creeping, slowly changing the seasons and the world. When a distant disaster orphans Caro and her half-brother, Pauly, they find that Pauly's mother has prepared an "ark" for them in her family's summer house, set up on a bit of high ground near a small village. The High House is stocked with supplies--food, medicines, clothing, even toys for Pauly's childhood--to help them and the caretakers, Sally and her "Grandy," survive the apocalypse. Grandy and Sally also have skills to teach...boating, fishing, gardening. While Sally initially keeps track of the world-wide disasters, gradually their world shrinks to the house and it's immediate environs, and the day-to-day struggles of keeping their group fed, healthy, and housed when there are only the finite resources immediately at hand. Beautifully written but bleak., and relentless.

Hauntingly lyrical, melancholy, and moving — though nothing much truly happens in the story, and it doesn’t answer the question of what happened to the rest of humanity. It also doesn’t answer whether there were other survivors in equally dire straits (pun intended) on other continents where surely the distance above the new sea level was sufficient to support a larger population — like the Bavarian mountains or Tibet and Nepal, or even the Rockies and Appalachians where at least some of the population are more self-sufficient by necessity. Finally, if you’re expecting a happy ending you’re going to be disappointed. There is no happy ending, but the end is equally lyrical and sorrowful, and brought me to tears. I definitely recommend this book though it’s not at all what I first expected.