Set in the future when climate change has altered our planet, Emi and her parents, Larch and Kristina, reside in Nuuk, Greenland. When Emi’s mom goes missing and a dozen climate criminals are brazenly murdered, Emi and Larch head out in search of Kristina. Told through several points of view as well as Emi’s school essays, this stellar and hopeful debut is a standout. 5 stars.

The synopsis of this book was so intriguing to me, and I saw one of my mutual followers on bookstagram recommend this book so I wanted to give it a try. Dystopian fiction isn't my go-to genre so I was prepared to give the book time for me to warm up to it going in. I think the beginning hooked me well enough. I was intrigued by the concept of Zero Day celebrations and the Great Transition and moving away from fossil fuels and such. The topic seemed timely enough. However, by part 3 I was completely bored and lost and did not feel like the narrative was following a clear thread. I am DNFing at 25%. There is too much back and forth in time for me to make sense of what's going on, and the narration from Emi isn't clear enough in part 3 to make me want to continue. Things feel muddled and disorienting. Love the idea of the topic but I guess the execution just isn't for me. Thanks anyway for the ARC.

I loved this speculative fiction novel set sometime in the future. The characters and their story drew me in and kept me turning the pages until the end. I really enjoyed the family’s relationship as well as the climate aspect.

Speculative climate fiction is a favorite genre of mine so I was very excited to get this title through Net Galley. I liked the story, but was lost in the timeline. Reflections back to cultural music of my teen era, but being loved by a 15 year old, 16 years after net zero, did not relay how long into the future this story was occurring.
Just when I was loosing interest in the journey of the two main characters, there is a turning point that pulls me back in.
I don’t have trigggers when reading, but I read enough social media posts to know it’s a problem for some. There is an eating disorder in this book, and I’m not sure why. It added nothing to the story and was not explored for the cause or the cure.

Wow. This story is amazing. The creativity behind it is jaw dropping. I’m usually not drawn toward climate fiction with a utopian element, but I’m glad I made the exception for this novel. It’s a must read for everyone.

The story is conveyed by two alternating POV’s: Larch, husband of Kristina and father to teenage Emi, and Emi, daughter of Larch and Kristina.

There is also mystery/thriller piece embedded in the story after Kristina goes missing, and what ensues as Larch and Emi embark on finding her. There are secrets, heart pounding moments, and a vivid examination of the world post-climate crisis with flashbacks to before net zero emissions was achieved.

Brilliant.

Thank you to Atria Books and NetGalley for the e-ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

One of the latest entries in the Cli-Fi genre, The Great Transition follows one family living in the aftermath of a climate crisis and the world's response to it. Using a school report as a device for looking to the past, we uncover the history of both the family and the crisis. Along with the Cli-Fi elements, this is a story about how change can affect a family.

As a debut novel, the story suffered a bit from pacing issues in my opinion. It was slow to grab my attention, and I put it down around 15-20% until I could get the audio version. The different format worked for me, and the story picked up from there. I enjoyed the imagination of a future where humans have dealt with the climate crisis and what that might look like. Unlike some similar stories the way of life completely changes, we get to see life moving on in much the same way with a few key differences.

Thank you to #NetGalley and #AtriaBooks for a free copy of #TheGreatTransition by Nick Fuller Googins and to Cindy Burnett at #ThoughtsFromAPage for arranging the early read. All opinions are my own.

I knew I had to pick up this book after hearing so many great reviews. I even waited until it came out in physical form and bought myself a hard copy. Unfortunately, I had to DNF this book around the 30% mark. I found myself gravitating towards other books and not wanting to pick this one back up as I could not get into the story or any of the character arc's.

I may try to pick this book back up at some point but at this time I did not work for me.

A big thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for allowing me to read an early copy.

Cli-fi can be hit or miss but this is a total hit! Set in a future where we’ve achieved Net Zero (and celebrate with raucous parties and binge drinking). Mother Teresa has been supplanted by Mother Greta. And Beyoncé and Bruno Mars are classic music.
The story is told from an angsty teenage girl’s perspective. She’s just starting to understand that her parents are human, fallible, complex. So, the story is as much an exploration of that part of coming-of-age as it is about finally reckoning with climate criminals.
Not many stories are set in Maine or Greenland, so I appreciated that part of the descriptions.
Diverse ethnicities and sexual orientations are mentioned in the story. And while I would hope any future world had less emphasis on professional sports, at least this one’s about the WNBA!

I really enjoyed this story. It was genre bending- cli-fi meets dystopian and family drama- and I think the author as able to pull it off. It felt very plausible from a scientific standpoint, and I really appreciate that the characters were as fleshed out as well as the plot was. It made me think and made me feel- sign of good fiction, to me!

Wow, this was a truly great read set in the near future about the effects of climate change. I connected well with the characters and the emotional part of the story. In addition it was exciting, hard to put down and very thought provoking. The morality questions were particularly interesting. I look forward to more from this author (maybe even a sequel) as this is his first novel. Thanks to Edelweiss+ for the digital ARC. 5/5 stars

What an enticing read of what our world could become after it ends. The author does such an excellent job on showing a new society rising from the ashes of the climate catastrophe and what people had to go through during it. The flashbacks not only show us how the world and society collapsed, but also how the characters dealt with it ad became charged with effecting change. Beautifully told.

The Great Transition by Nick Fuller Googins explores a near future climate crisis novel. I thought this story was extremely well written and well imagined. We meet a family of 3 living in a society post climate crisis after we save the world.

This was just great - the author did an amazing job of building the world and a story to match it. I loved the characters and the questions that this story brought up really made me think. One of my favorite climate novels. Don’t miss it!

Thank you to NetGalley and Atria Books for the ARC - The Great Transition is out now!

After climate change causes severe destruction, the world bands together to rebuild and save the planet. The movement is called The Great Transition. Born post-Transition, Emi lives in a utopia compared to what her parents lived through. When her mom goes missing during a time of political upheaval, Emi begins a determined search to find her.

As a fan of speculative and dystopian fiction, I was really excited to read THE GREAT TRANSITON. The story started off pretty strong but unfortunately things fell apart for me in the later part and I felt like I was suddenly reading a different book. I enjoyed the premise centering on climate change as this is an important and timely topic. There were many thought-provoking moments. I liked the alternating timelines and inclusion of Emi’s school report. The tone and pacing really shifted when Emi began searching for her mom. From then on, I really struggled to keep interest and was reading more so to get to the conclusion rather than out of enjoyment.

I liked the premise of THE GREAT TRANSITION but the overall execution fell flat for me. I’d still recommend it to those that the synopsis sparks interest for as it may work better for others.

Thank you to Atria and NetGalley for the DRC.

Is it possible to hate /enjoy a book? The flashbacks read like a documentary for our present day. I was riveted to those sections. This is fiction though and the part I hated is that I can see it playing out this way IRL.

I loved this book and have already shared it with many library patrons. It is a great introduction to Climate Fiction, All of the problems but with so much hope. I also really enjoyed the parts of the book written as a high school research paper with bonus teacher comments!

This book was really compelling in its approach to climate change. It centers around a family navigating through the aftermath of a transition from a catastrophic climate event. There's a lot that stuck with me about it and I think it really speaks to a young generation that regularly has to face policy regarding climate change that they have little control over.

This cli-fi novel caught my attention for its comparisons to books I love like Station Eleven and Future Home of the Living God. The author himself calls it a "climate crisis utopia": the story is set in a near-future world that almost collapsed due to the great climate crisis, but global citizens forged a post-nation-state, post-fossil-fuel way of being, and this change became known as The Great Transition. In one timeline, 15-year-old Emi listens to oldies like Adele and Taylor Swift, works on a school research project about The Great Transition, and seeks to find her mother, a missing climate change activist. In the past timeline, we follow Emi's mother and father as they meet and fall in love while working to avert climate disaster before the crucial milestone of Day Zero. This is a fast-paced, intelligent genre mash-up and a worthy addition to the rapidly expanding catalog of ecological fiction. Narrated by Stacy Carolan and Stacy Gonzalez.

Published by Atria Books on August 15, 2023

This will be a mixed review, but the positives outweigh the negatives. At its best, the novel illustrates the desperate measures that Americans will need to take to survive global warming after the climate reaches a tipping point.

The story’s most interesting and dramatic moments come from flashbacks to the way communities responded to the Crisis. Coastal cities are flooded, the Everglades are underwater, hurricanes have devastated the Gulf states, forests are constantly burning, the South is too hot to inhabit. Voters who have had enough elect politicians who begin the Great Transition. Serious efforts are finally made to eliminate carbon emissions after workers are organized into Corps that labor to protect the nation from fires and flooding while cleaning up the mess. Presumably the climate change deniers decided to stop fighting progress at some point along the way.

The new politicians, like the old, favor the interests of the wealthy — the people whose greed caused the Crisis — by assuring that they receive more protection and benefits than everyone else. A people’s revolution ultimately causes the Transition workers, spurred by Phoenix Company, to go on strike and then to organize self-governing worker cooperatives, making decisions that are best for everyone, not just for the ruling class. All of this is more interesting than the story that unfolds in the present.

As the novel begins, the Crisis is abating. The Transition ended sixteen years earlier. The new challenge is to restore prairies, rivers, woodlands, and other ecosystems so that wildlife will have habitats that will allow species to multiply.

Those who knowingly profited from carbon emissions have been branded as “climate criminals” but they have never been punished. Members of a group known as the Furies, an apparent offshoot of Phoenix Company, are hunting and assassinating climate criminals. There are obvious parallels between the American ruling class after the Crisis and the aristocracy after the French Revolution. The novel’s moral theme asks whether retributive justice — assassination as vengeance, with no formal charges or opportunity to present a defense — is actually justice. Apart from moral issues, the characters learn that, in practice, vengeance triggers retaliation.

The protagonists are a husband and wife (Larch and Kristina) and their daughter Emi. Kristina and Larch worked to facilitate the Great Transition. They met while fighting a fire to save at least some of Yosemite. Kristina became the face of Phoenix Company. Larch was in a reality TV show featuring members of the Forest Corps. Now he works for a WNBA team.

Emi views her mother as a hero while others view her as a criminal. A terrorist attack on Zero Day (celebrating the net-zero emissions anniversary) nearly kills Larch and Emi. Why the Furies would want to place people at risk who are celebrating environmentalism is unclear.

Kristina calls to warn Larch just before the attack, but how did Kristina (who is supposedly in a different state on a volunteer mission) know the attack was coming? Two agents from Public Security soon arrive to question Larch and Emi, but are they really from Public Security? Is Kristina innocent or a terrorist? Clearly she isn’t anywhere in between, because the characters have little nuance.

When Kristina doesn’t respond to messages, Larch and Emi go looking for her. Most of the adventure/action in the plot concerns the attempt Larch and Emi make to locate Kristina while evading the authorities (or whomever). Nick Fuller Googins mixes in a large dose of domestic drama as Kristina and Larch argue about the impact their political/lifestyle beliefs have upon their family obligations. Both characters are a bit self-righteous, as people tend to be when they quarrel about domestic or political issues. Unfortunately, the arguments seem like constructs to advance the plot rather than actual disputes between marital partners. Their parenting quarrels (“I taught her to be strong” vs “I let her be a normal kid”) become tedious. I suppose readers can decide which parent they like better, or which parenting philosophy they would follow, but neither parent is a great role model.

Emi is a convincing teenager, in that she is smug in her beliefs, doesn’t listen to adults, and is certain of her entitlement. Despite her questionable taste, she considers herself the goddess of rock (mostly pop) history, which she apparently regards as having started in the 90s.

Tearful moments of family reconciliation/resolution are artificial. Call me unsentimental, but some of the “we all still love each other” scenes are just too gooey for my taste. The final resolution of the family dynamic and Kristina’s precarious situation is a cop-out.

Firefighting scenes are exciting. The revolutionary solution to the Crisis is intriguing. The rest of the novel is best seen as a forgettable excuse to delve into a fascinating backstory.

RECOMMENDED

4-1/2 stars for a fascinating, terrifying, and ultimately hopeful glimpse at the future of Earth after climate change has reached an acute crisis point, and finally people begin to come together to save themselves and the only home we have. Good character development, and a very well-developed post-Transition world. My only quibble is the author's invention of terminology with insufficient (or long delayed) explanation of its meaning.

Though I don't expect to live long enough to see this sort of transition come to fruition, this novel almost makes me wish I could.

Unfortunately The Great Transition did not work for me. The premise was excellent, and the descriptions of the "Transition Times" really held my interest. The novel alternates voice from Emi, the daughter of Larch and Kristina Vargas, and her father, Larch. Emi feels she does not measure up to her mother's expectations, and there is definitely conflict within this family about the climate crisis, and what can be done to stop it. For me, the mother Kristina was just too militant, and her secrecy and lack of concern about how her actions would affect her family just ruined this book for me. A promising premise, but I did not like the "executions" and the rationalization of Kristina.