Nowhere Better Than Here by Sarah Guillory
⭐️⭐️⭐️

[Thank you to Netgalley and MacMillan Children's Publishing Group for giving me this ARC to read and review!]

I am going to start this review by saying this book wasn't specifically for me. It holds a lot of important messages when it comes to the tragedy of losing your home to weather, grief, friendship, and even realization.

I enjoyed the story as a whole for what it stands for: when your home is being drowned out by a flood, you should do everything as a community to come together and try to save your home. But the main character is where I struggle to connect to the story fully.

The main character, Jillian, was very selfish, not understanding when it came to someone else's decision to leave their home and move somewhere else. She's very judgemental toward her friend Maddie when she has a different point of view toward their home flooding but Maddie has always shown her loyalty and friendship toward Jillian and Jillian still doesn't act like a good friend toward Maddie at all. Jillian also isn't very understanding to her new friend Mina, who just wants to help her. And when they argue, Jillian states Mina has no idea how she feels.

This is a great representation of what it means to not know what someone is going through by just assuming or looking at someone. Jillian later learns that Mina's home flooded too, and she does know, and that's why she wants to help. Jillian also understands why Maddie has her own different point of view, and they all come together again as friends in the end. It's a great growth for Jillian to go from judgmental to understanding by the end!

I really love that Jillian wants to make a difference and change what is out of her control. It's a great lesson for everyone who reads this book that you have the ability to try and make a difference.

This book holds so many different lessons throughout it, that a home isn't always a place, it's the stories and the history. That someone may be going through something, but you can't always see it. And that making a difference doesn't always mean you win, it means you have tried. Great story and highly recommend!

This was a really nice Middle Grade novel. The writing was great. Overall, I would definitely recommend this book!

I received an e-ARC from the publisher.

Having spent almost a fourth of my life in Louisiana, Sarah Guillory’s middle grade novel, Nowhere Better Than Here enticed me. Jillian Robichaux loves her home with bayou sunsets, a story-telling grandmother, and interacting with the nature she finds in the coastal town of Boutin.

The worst flood of the century and rising tides threaten to bring all of that to an end. The local school that has become a second home after her father abandoned Jillian and her mother. Community members have become like family. Now, the school is condemned along with the bridges into town. Neighbors are making hard choices about leaving or staying. What can a thirteen-year-old do against what seems like impossible odds? Then the deserting father turns up needing his own shelter from the storm. In a bit of a bright side, he brings a lovable golden retriever with him.

Jillian discovers that her grandmother is not the only Boutin resident with stories and finds a way to preserve the history and hope for the community she loves. Sarah Guillory tells a great story with accuracy for the lay of the land in South Louisiana and its challenges from climate change. I recommend it for middle schoolers and for those who love that area and its unique character.

As someone living in the south and also have a degree in environmental science, this book ticked a lot of boxes for me! I think this is a great read for kids that are interested in science and a great suggestion for teachers to give!

This was a really great book! I enjoyed how the story was told and the way that we got to see the pot unfold. It's a great read!

This is a good book for a young audience. It's middle grade but I'd say it's not bad for an even younger crowd. This was well written and has likeble characters.

This is a Middle Grade climate change/flooding in Louisiana. I really love the characters in this book, and I love the writing in this book. The message in this book is so great. I love how strong this young girl is and how much this young girl does during this book. This book is a great read with great characters. The story is so moving as well. I was kindly provided an e-copy of this book by the publisher (Roaring Brook Press) or author (Sarah Guillory) via NetGalley, so I can give an honest review about how I feel about this book. I want to send a big Thank you to them for that.

I adore novels about young people rallying to fight climate change because these books give me hope for the future. My most recent read in this sub-genre is Nowhere Better Than Here by Sarah Guillory and I loved it so much! Set in southern Louisiana, Jillian Robichaux is used to flooding and high water, but she doesn’t realize how bad it’s gotten and that her hometown will be completely under water in her lifetime. This book has an incredibly strong sense of place. Boutin, Louisiana is a made-up town, but towns like this dot the Louisiana coastline, and they are in danger.

Highly recommended for middle school libraries. Pair this novel with The First Rule of Climate Club, Manatee Summer, and Haven Jacobs Saves the Planet.

Nowhere Better Than Here
by Sarah Guillory
Pub Date 20 Sep 2022
Macmillan Children's Publishing Group, Roaring Brook Press
Children's Fiction



I am reviewing a copy of Nowhere Better Than Here through Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group, Roaring Book Press and Netgalley:



Jillian Robichaux, is a thirteen year old who finds three things sacred bayou sunsets, her grandmother Nonnie’s stories, and the coastal Louisiana town of Boutin that she calls home.



But after the worst flood in a century hits, Jillian and the rest of her community band together as they always do but this time the damage may simply be too great. After the local school is padlocked and the bridges into town condemned, Jillian has no choice but to face the reality that she may be losing the only home she’s ever had.



Even after all Hope seems lost, Jillian is determined to find a way to keep Boutin and its indomitable spirit alive. With the help of friends new and old, a loveable golden retriever, and Nonnie’s storytelling wisdom, Jillian does just that in this timely and heartfelt story of family, survival, and hope.



I give Nowhere Better Than Here five out of five stars!


Happy Reading!

Nowhere Better Than Here by Sarah Guillory is an intense story about a girl finding herself when she's losing the things she loves the most. I had never heard of the devastation happening to Louisiana and this book was a wonderful introduction. The side story of Jillian's relationship with her father was heartbreaking as well. I appreciated that this was a "save the planet" type of story, but not in a beat you over the head with it kind of way. You grow to feel for Jillian and her family and what they are going through and root for her to fix everything. The story was incredibly realistic and will stay with me for a while. Very well written.

A small shrimping town in Louisiana receives an unusually heavy rainstorm that lasts for days (on and off). It causes extensive flooding and highlights the problems of slowly encroaching water that now covers a great deal more of the town than it did 50 years before.

Jillian, a 13 year old middle-school student, and legacy member of the community, tries to have the school reopened--with the help of two friends--and works on other projects that may sway others to her cause.

In the mean time, her unreliable father shows up, disrupting everyone's lives.

The focus of this book is split between ecology, preserving the land and preventing further loss, and a love for the marsh areas where this girl has grown up; that she considers to be a large part of her identity. She isn't sure whether she will be the same person if she has to leave.

It's a moving story of the disappointments of having divorced parents, watching the destruction of a beloved community and the disappearance of the land itself, and the discovery of inner strength to make the best choices.

4/5

Thanks to Roaring Brook Press and NetGalley for the preview of this ebook; the review is voluntary.

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There are a lot of middle grade fiction out there where the problem is fixed in the end. Those are all well and good, but things that are as big as climate change aren’t going to be fixed at the end of any books, any time soon.
The basic story is that Julian lives in a swampy area of Louisiana that has been slowly flooding. The town that was around 50 years ago, is mostly underwater. She is only 13 years, and didn’t realize this was happening, until the town floods again, and the state decides not to fix the bridges, which means that people can’t live in the town anymore.

She has heard stories all her life, and realizes if her town is going away, she should collect the stories, so at least those will remain. And then she meets a ecological scientist, who is trying to save what she can, and although Julian would like to save her town, that is not something she has control over. But she can control the narrative, so to speak, and gets the stories she can before the town is gone for good.

I love that her ambitions, and her hopes to save her town weren’t so much unreasonable, but that she felt she had to try. I liked that she tried so hard to get others to remain in the town, despite it being eaten away by water. And I loved some of the plain knowledge that people spread around her.

For example, one of her friends tells her “Places and people don’t get to define you, you define you.”

And when her absent father fails, again to show up for something important, her mother tells her “You are not the way other people treat you. Don’t ever think that him not showing up tonight has anything to do with you. It doesn’t. It has to do with him and no one else.”

And when she is told why the state won’t try to repair the roads in town she is told “They have to use the money for places that matter,” dad said. “We matter,” I muttered. Home mattered. “Places with more people,” Mama said.

Very real, heartfelt book. I loved it and loved reading it.