I had read this author's last book and I really enjoyed it so I had pretty high expectations going into this. While I do think this book did a good job showing characters recognizing and processing their trauma, the writing felt very..... juvenile? There were sooo many cringey lines and so many moments that I just sighed outloud because the things the characters were thinking were just soooo dumbbb. I really wanted to enjoy this because I think this author has a lot of potental and has great ideas but this book just was not it.

*YA-Two teens meet after Hurricane Harvey forces them to attend the same HS in Houston, TX
*Sweet, innocent relationship between Javi & Eliza- best part of the book!
*Environmentally minded youth
*PTSD/anxiety-trauma
*Mindfulness techniques
*Culture awareness
*Bit preachy at times
*Needed distinction between internal thoughts and text messages- got confusing sometimes

Thank you to NetGalley and Macamillan Children's Publishing for the ARC in exchange for my honest review!

This was a very interesting book. The author did such a great job showing the fall out after a natural (?) disaster. From the clean-up to the eco-anxiety, so much happens that most people would never realize. Yet many people live with these events every day.
I did struggle a bit with the main character as her attitude was difficult to balance with her economic status. It was hard for me to sympathize with her.
The author did do a great job though giving voice to the environment and what each of us can do to help. She also opened the door to getting help from professionals when life gets to be to much. Thank you for that.
All in all, I really came away with a new awareness of the issues facing those who are affected by natural disasters and it's repercussions.

Cover Story: Bayou Beauty
BFF Charm: Heck Yes!
Talky Talk: Full of Moxie
Bonus Factor: Texas Forever
Anti-Bonus Factor: Climate Change Anxiety
Relationship Status: Fired Up

Cover Story: Bayou Beauty

A purple-blue cover with a boy and a girl holding hands in silhouette of a cloudy sunset, their reflection in the water behind them. The title of the book gets increasingly watery as it is spelled out. Because this book takes place in Houston, the source of the large puddle the couple is standing in evokes a bayou flood — but it’s beautiful.

The Deal:

Eliza Brady, type-A Baldwin High student, has an interesting junior year ahead of her. Because Hurricane Harvey flooded her school building, she and other Baldwin students and staff will be sharing space at Southwest High for the time being. Harvey also flooded her home, so she’s living with her aunt and uncle in a ranch house not far from her ruined school. Climate change has Eliza in a constant state of anxiety, and she decides to start up an action-oriented club at Southwest/Baldwin to help the planet.

Javier Garza, a shy Southwest High student, has had panic attacks every time it rains after he experienced Harvey. He doesn’t understand why — his house didn’t even flood. But he’s worried just the same. When Eliza asks him to join her after-school club, he does, and not just because he finds her cute: he wants to figure out how to preserve the planet for his soon-to-be-born niece.

The two have chemistry, that’s for sure, but will bureaucracy, Houston-oriented Big Oil, and classmates’ apathy stand in their way?

BFF Charm: Heck Yes!

Eliza is a little bit MUCH at first and can be very overbearing at times. Everything can be solved, she thinks, by organization, color-coded planners, to-do lists, and action. But her outward confidence hides her innermost anxieties, the bulk of which are caused by man-made climate change.

Javier is a sweetheart who doesn’t understand his own panic attacks caused by bad weather. He is not a leader, but a follower, so even he is surprised when Eliza asks him to be a co-president of the ETUP club. The club helps him to come out of his shell a little bit, and he even imagines new action items for the club to take on.

Mathieu created a story that makes you root for Eliza and Javier as people, not just as a couple (which, obviously, they become). You want Eliza to find peace; you want Javier to settle his heart. I also have climate anxiety and saw a lot of myself in Eliza. Every plastic bag I’ve ever used haunts me sometimes, as I know they’re still hanging out in a landfill somewhere. She does the same thing, calculating all of the bottles from all of the students and then all of the schools, and on and on, a mountain of trash the size of Texas. It’s overwhelming. So I get it. But at the same time, you can’t slow the warming of the planet just by yourself.

Swoonworthy Scale: 5

Eliza and Javier have a little bit of an insta-love thing going on: she bumps into him on the first day of school, he thinks she’s cute, she thinks he’s cute, they meet again and she suggests to him joining her new club because she wants to see him again. It seemed inevitable that they would end up together. The thing that got me was that Eliza made all the first moves. It’s very Eliza of her to take charge of her love life, and I appreciated that she was the one putting herself out there!

Talky Talk: Full of Moxie

Jennifer Mathieu wrote Moxie, upon which the Amy Poehler-produced Netflix movie is based, and Down Came the Rain has an equal amount of heart. Mathieu doesn’t include slang or pop culture references in her books, so they don’t feel too dated. This book takes place in 2017, right after Hurricane Harvey, but it could be relevant today or five or ten years from now, and I like that.

Bonus Factor: Texas Forever

An additional voice in the book, aside from the dual POV of Eliza and Javier, is Houston itself. I liked hearing that familiar voice talk about its own strengths and weaknesses, and how it handled the rain from Harvey; how the people of Houston banded together after the flooding, and supported one another, and came back stronger than before. I wished there were a few more interstitials with the Houston voice — I think there are only three altogether — but they were a nice touch.

I also thought it was worth mentioning that both Eliza and Javier have family members who work in the Big Oil field, and how it’s difficult to unwind the systems that have fossil fuels dominating the energy industry. The conversation that Eliza eventually has with her oil executive dad was cathartic and much-needed. Kudos to Mathieu for taking that on.

Anti-Bonus Factor: Climate Change Anxiety

I mean, obviously, this book is about climate change, and Mathieu leaves the ending on a hopeful, but realistic, note. Did reading about climate change make me more anxious about it? Yes, but it was nice reading someone else’s fears that mirror mine. I felt a lot less alone.

Relationship Status: Fired Up

If there’s anything that this book does, it makes me more grateful for living in this world at the time that I do. Yes, the fight for the planet will be hard, but I’m fired up and ready to make changes and urge others to do so as well. This is a good must-read for kids and adults alike!

After Eliza’s home in Houston is destroyed by Hurricane Harvey, she is forced to transfer to Southwest High School. Traumatized by the floods and anxious in her new surroundings, Eliza throws herself into environmental activism, even if it's against the wishes of her big-oil dad. But when she meets Javi – a boy who has experienced climate-related trauma of his own – she's finally able to connect with someone over the devastating mental effects of ecological disaster. Filled with nuanced themes of mental health, classism, and eco-anxiety, Down Came the Rain is a riveting and moving tale of friendship, first love, and what it means to grow up in an ever-changing world. Honestly, I didn't like it.

he topics in this book—hurricane/devastation of a natural disaster, aftermath—can often feel especially heavy for me to read, but Mathieu handled these harder topics beautifully. Having young adults from all backgrounds come together to help each other throughout the narrative was powerful. I liked this book more than I thought I would, but some of the characters were not memorable for me and that took away from the lasting memory/staying power of the narrative.

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Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an e-arc of this title. This review contains my honest thoughts.

This book was so much more than I thought it would be! Yes, it did educate me on climate change and things that we all can do to help out our planet, but it dealt with much more serious issues than I thought it would. The book shows how the young adults in Houston deal with the aftereffects of Hurricane Harvey. When entire neighborhoods become flooded, the school system is forced to combine students from two different high schools into one building. This act forces students from different socioeconomic backgrounds to attend classes together and for some, this is the first time they have been around people that look different from themselves. The book also deals with the trauma that young adults go through after experiencing a natural disaster. Luckily, the school has a counselor that students can take advantage of and who will guide them through some coping skills and relaxation techniques. But, the main concept of this book is climate change and the impact and worry that it places on the youth of our society. It's a scary thought that our world won't be there for our kids to enjoy, but unless we take some action now, it could be a reality. I will definitely recommend this book to my middle-grade kiddos and I think they will enjoy it!

Eliza and Javi are high school teenagers living in Houston and dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, disrupting their lives and local communities. Eliza is very passionate and strong-minded about climate change and encouraging others to take action. She forms a club called E-T-U-P to bring awareness about climate change to others at her school. Along the way, she forms a connection with Javi, who also wants to be a part of making change. Together, they organize a recycling program, park clean-ups, and a petition as co-presidents of the school’s environmental club.

Both Eliza and Javi face trauma of their own and must learn how to overcome obstacles. While this book focuses mainly on eco-anxiety and climate change, there is also an underlying theme of the importance of mental health and self-care.

Overall, I thought this book was good, and I think readers of my high school’s library will enjoy it as Moxie and Bad Girls Never Say Die are highly circulated. I really enjoyed seeing Javi’s growth and thought his character was well-written. I struggled with Eliza because I felt that she was so strong-minded that she wasn’t open to anyone else’s ideas. Her relationship and feelings toward her family were also very frustrating. I thought the author did a great job of tackling climate change and presenting it in a way that makes the reader consider the choices they make in their own life. I would give this book 3.5 stars.

Down Came the Rain addressed the pressures put on teens as they try to navigate the world around them that is directly effected by climate change. Eliza and Javier meet due to a hurricane that forces to economically diverse high schools to combine in one building. Eliza begins a club that looks to create action against climate change in their community. Javier joins to get to know the strong, smart, and passionate Eliza. As the story continues, the world around Eliza becomes too much and she has a mental break where she performs an act of vandalism that alters her life course and her relationship with Javier. This fictional story shows that teens are directly tied to the changes Earth is making do to human actions and that they feel that they are not successful in fighting the adults.

DNF'ed at 50%. I was so extremely bored. I found the main characters to be obnoxious and very immature. I think the book's premise had a lot of potential, but poor execution.

In this YA book we see the impact of Hurricane Harvey on teens’ lives in Houston and how they move on.
Javi's character is very well written and showcases PTSD and how it can affect people differently, even a teen.
This book showcases the psychological and emotional impact of the hurricane on our characters.
I liked that this book spotlights the impact of climate change and how it is necessary for us to do whatever it takes to make this a better world.

really good book and kept me on my on my toes of what would happen. really enjoyed the characters and their journey and would read this author again.

3.5

I really struggled with some parts of this and enjoyed others, so I ended up going with the middle ground on this. It's rather surprising, as I've rated every other Jennifer Mathieu book highly, but this one didn't sit quite right with me.

Javi's character was very well-written. You could see him struggling with PTSD and not understanding why he had it, and wanting to help the environment but still seeing the other side with his brother Miguel working for an oil refinery. He understood that things needed to change, but that change is rarely so simple. Eliza on the other hand I struggled with a lot. She has more of a I'm-smarter-and-better-than-you attitude and belittles and yells at people who don't agree with her. Her way of getting people to care about climate change is to make them feel like shit for their actions, even if their action is as simple as stating they like chicken. It's a lot harder to sympathize with her when she treats people the way she does. Nowhere in the history of ever has yelling at or belittling someone convinced them to change their mind about something. It usually has the opposite effect. And while I get that she is passionate about climate change, it still doesn't excuse the way she treats people, especially her own family and Javi. There is also the fact that while she enjoys spewing facts about climate change and fossil fuels, she rarely looks at the other side of things, such as how other families who are not as well off as hers can't as easily change things about their situations, living conditions, or jobs, not to mention the fact that there are human rights violations when it comes to the people that have to mine for the minerals to make batteries for cars and what happens when rich countries ship their recyclable items to poor countries and let them deal with it. She does get a bit of enlightenment at the end, but we only able to see a tiny change as it comes so late in the story. And while she is dealing with her own form of PTSD or possibly OCD, it still isn't an excuse for her to treat people the way she does.

I think climate change is important and there is a lot of work to be done. We do need to do something about our reliance on oil and plastic, but we need to realize that there are human lives on the other end of things too.

A YA book about the impact of Hurricane Harvey on teens’ lives in Houston and how they move on. The way the book showcases the psychological and emotional impact of the hurricane and how it becomes so stressful to the point of a breakdown. This was one of the first books that I have read that truly spotlights the impact of climate change and how it is necessary for us to do whatever it takes to make this a better world.