I was so excited to get my hands on this book based on the description, but I’m sorry to say that it didn’t meet my expectations.

There was so much potential here, but I felt that the plotting and characterization really fell short. I struggled to finish.

I gravitate toward a dystopian or post-apocalyptic story, so when All The Water In The World popped up on netgalley, I snapped at the chance to read it. I quickly got bored with the beginning, though. Plenty of reviews say this starts slow and I definitely agree. I switched to the audiobook in hopes of increasing the pace, but the narrators voice felt far too old for Nonie's age and inner monologue. I just didn't feel connected to this story or the characters. Obviously I see the realistickkness of these "unprecedented" super storms and I see in real time how these storms are a new reality coming alongside climate change in my real life outside this book, but overall this book just lacked intrigue and intensity. Sure, it’s sad and raw and I sort of rooted for Nonie, but I also didn’t really care and there was a totally underwhelming storyline of Nonie’s potentially superhuman connection to water that wasn’t truly addressed. It’s unfortunate that this book fell so short overall. I’m sure it will resonate with some, but it just didn’t do it for me.

A few years into the future The World As It Was completely changed due to the melting of the polar ice caps. We find young Nonie and her older sister Bix, their father, a man named Keller, and a few friends living on the roof of American Museum of Natural History in NYC, trying to survive the apocalyptic World As It Is Now. Food, drinking water, medicines are scarce. Stray dogs and people known as The Lost are threats to an already fragile way of life. Nonie and the others are hoping to retain as much as they can from AMNH to help keep history and knowledge intact. That all changes when a Hypercane (a super hurricane) destroys what little was left of AMNH and they must flee in a canoe from an exhibit. Will they find the refuge they need on dry land? Will they survive the journey and dangers along the way?

WOW. I scooped this up based on the comparisons to Station Eleven, which I loved. This is truly just as good, if not better. From page one I loved Nonie and Bix. I was pulled into their orbit as a mother myself wanting to protect them. I thought a lot about my own daughters. My own husband who, as a type 1 diabetic, would likely not survive without medicine like others in this story. Without spoilers, I won't touch on other aspects of the story that drew me in, but will say it felt very much like I was on this journey alongside them. I thought a ton about what I would do and how I would survive. We take so much for granted with our own current day (aka "The World As It Was") and saw a glimpse of how quickly things could go bad during COVID but if things REALLY turned on their head, how could we continue?

This book was so well done. The writing style of this author is beautiful and she invites the reader easily into the new world she creates. I felt like I was in the canoe wet, hungry and scared myself. I couldn't put it down and need to know how and if they survived. What a story!!!

Thank you Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read in exchange for my honest review. This story and it's characters will stay with me for a long time. I also will be collecting field guides and learning survival skills as a result. Let's be real - what this author created isn't too far out of the realm of possibility so maybe we all need to wake up! WOW again!!!

How fitting that one of the last books I've read this year is also by far one of my favorites.

Our young narrator Nonie has the gift of knowing water; she can sense the intensity of impending precipitation, from rain so gentle you might tip your head up to drink it, to a monster storm known as a hypercane. Nonie lives with her parents, older sister Bix, and a few other survivors on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History. They have fled to it as shelter as the world's glaciers have all melted; civilization has collapsed, and catastrophic weather and illness have wiped out much of the population. The small community ventures out to hunt in Central Park and scavenge medical and other survival supplies in the mostly abandoned city. They utilize only what is absolutely necessary from the various museum exhibits while attempting to preserve and make records of the rest.

When a storm more intense than anything they've ever imagined destroys their shelter, a small band of them set out in hopes of finding a family farm they remember. Danger and other traumatized survivors are scattered along the route, and Nonie needs to find any bits of strength and hope she has to fight for herself and those she loves.

This book is just beautifully and heartbreakingly written. The characters are so well developed that we absolutely know them and root for them to live, to find a way to create a new life for themselves. I highlighted sooo many powerful passages in this that moved me. I'm adding this author to my must-read list!

Thank you so much to St. Martin's Press for this ARC!

"All the Water in the World" by Eiren Caffall is a captivating and thought-provoking novel that explores the devastating impact of climate change.

I DNF about 65% in for several reasons

I was so excited for this book because The Day After Tomorrow is one of my favorite movies! For me, this book was so slow but I kept reading hoping it would get better. The deciding factor of DNF this book... I was HAPPY that there are diverse characters in this book UNTIL Keller (a Black Male character) is left taking care of 2 white girls (idk their age and I don't care). My assumption is that he will eventually die to ensure the two white main characters live. But also, Mano is NOT white character dies gruesomely so the older daughter learns her post apocalyptic lesson?
Honestly, the author could have kept this in the drafts or made Keller white, then I would have finished the book and probably rated it.

I will say... Eiren Caffall, you weren't wrong about some information about the Ingenious peoples.

I'm just going to make a list why this book didn't work for me because it's Christmas and I don't want to be eloquent.

- Nothing happened until 50%
- Our main character has a special ability that is never explored/doesn't affect the story
- We don't get a lot of background into the advent of the flood
- A lot of characters that we are supposed to feel something for, but we don't get to establish a connection
- Flashback scenes completely jar the story and bring it to a halt

There was nothing wrong with the writing but I just really didn't enjoy this and I finished it by sheer force of will!

How Many Ways Are There to Describing Wading?

Eiren Caffall is a musician based in Chicago, who has published on the environment in mainstream media. This seems to be her first novel. “A literary thriller set partly on the roof of New York’s Museum of Natural History in a flooded future. All the Water in the World is told in the voice of a girl gifted with a deep feeling for water.” This seems to be an attempt at adding a magical element to an environmental dystopia. It doesn’t really succeed, as every human “feels” water, unless they lost that sensation… “In the years after the glaciers melt, Nonie, her older sister and her parents and their researcher friends have stayed behind in an almost deserted New York City, creating a settlement on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History. The rule: Take from the exhibits only in dire need. They hunt and grow their food in Central Park as they work to save the collections of human history and science. When a superstorm breaches the city’s flood walls, Nonie and her family must escape north on the Hudson.” The horrors of global flooding are handled too melodramatically in this book. The story jumps around in time, and into abstract repetitions of “murky water” and flooded buildings. Pretty much every page is about the characters “wading” through water, while they complain, “Why are we going so fast?” This annoying quality seems designed to repel those who care about the environment to convert them into not caring by nonstop whining without concrete linear narrative to explain what’s happening rationally.
“They carry with them a book that holds their records of the lost collections. Racing on the swollen river towards what may be safety, they encounter communities that have adapted in very different and sometimes frightening ways to the new reality. But they are determined to find a way to make a new world that honors all they’ve saved. Inspired by the stories of the curators in Iraq and Leningrad who worked to protect their collections from war… both a meditation on what we save from collapse and an adventure story—with danger, storms, and a fight for survival… This wild journey offers the hope that what matters most—love and work, community and knowledge—will survive.”
This story seems to begin with a long quote from somebody else, but on second look I guess it’s just framed this way by placing the “From the Water Logbook” byline at right-aligned. This paragraph describes a “hypercane” with up to “200 mph” winds that is theoretically possible. Then the opening chapter, “1: What We See” begins with feeling water and “weather”. A person is called “Amen”, which is confusing because the doom-and-gloom context suggests “Amen” would be a religious exclamation… Looking closer at the blurb, I realized that “Amen” is not a person (suggested by lines such as, “But the storm that took Amen…”), but rather is a simplification of the A-M-N-H abbreviation for the American Museum of Natural History. It was clearly not “taken” because the characters live on its roof across this novel… I just can’t keep reading this novel… I’ve recently written a lot about wading through water, but I’d like to think my characters do other stuff aside for wading and talking… Yayks.
—Pennsylvania Literary Journal, Fall 2024: https://anaphoraliterary.com/journals/plj/plj-excerpts/book-reviews-fall-2024

All the Water in the World is a dystopian novel told from the point of view of a child named Nonie. This reminds me of a quieter Station Eleven in the capacity of a need to preserve history in a post-apocalyptic society. There is nothing wrong with this story, yet I found it hard to finish due to my lack of interest in the narrative. It was fine. I'm sure most people will enjoy this wholesome story. There is a lot of beauty in the found family woven with past grief. This just wasn't for me.
I read the ebook and listened to the audiobook. The narrator has a very pleasant voice that also comes across often as hesitant in tone and often left me feeling a little unstable with the narrative.
Thanks to NetGalley, St. Martin's Press, and Macmillan Audio for this ARC!

Though I had heard about this book, I went away disappointed. The post-apocalyptic theme is not my genre plus it never invoked a feeling, positive or negative , about any of the characters.

This was a decent story, but it doesn't hold a candle to The Light Pirate or Station Eleven. The story starts off exciting and different, but as the storm progresses and Nonie and family have to flee the museum, things start to drag, which is strange considering this should be the most exciting part of the book. Overall, while I didn't hate this, I certainly didn;t love it. It took me much longer to get through than I expected.

ARC REVIEW: all the water in the world by eiren caffall 🌊 a literary thriller set partly on the roof of new york’s museum of natural history in a flooded future.

WOW, simply unlike anything I’ve read before! our fmc is told through a child named nonnie mayo who can sense through her body when a storm is coming. which is very fortunate because the world as they know it is at the mercy of hypercanes, irreversible climate changes, food shortages and looting.

🌬️ in this story there were flashbacks serving as a refuge to a quieter, gentler time opposed to the dread and fear stricken group of survivors having to overcome one obstacle after another.

personally, the writing style and structure took some time to get into as certain scenes were hard to picture. once I understood the flow of the story, it was much easier and almost an unputdownable read!

while reading ATWITW I had a nightmare that I was drowning, so to say this apocalyptic, coming of age story was thought provoking, is an understatement. thank you macmillan audio & st. martin's press for the early copies! 💙 3.5 stars!

QUICK GLANCE-
My format- ebook
Other Formats🎧Audio (8 hours 42 min) and 📖Physical (304 pages)
Spice: 🚫
Language: 🚫
CW: ⚠️Loss of a parent, death, violence

MY THOUGHTS
The plot of this book drew me in right away, and I was very excited about the premise because I’m always on the hunt for the next epic dystopian adventure! In the end, while I enjoyed the idea of this book, it was just an ok read for me. I had a hard time visualizing the settings and understanding what was happening at times, which may have been due to not fully vibing with the author’s style of writing. However, there were some strong points that I appreciated. The book really made me think about the future and the “what if” scenarios. I’ve heard good things about the audio version of this book, so maybe I would have preferred that method over the ebook.

A big thank you to @netgalley, and St. Martin’s Press for the ARC copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

In this dystopian novel, the future is flooded, and water-related illnesses abound. A hypercane wipes out all but four group members surviving on a museum roof. Through Nonie's eyes, experience what it means to be a human surviving cataclysmic events and how you determine who cares about others and who only cares about themself.

This book, All the Water in the World, is Eiren Caffall's first work of fiction. I usually don't enjoy post-apopalypic novels, but something in the description drew me to it. Maybe because in these sorts of books, at least in the few I've read, the earth has burned up leaving huge swaths uninhabitable. Abandoned cars left stranded piled up on roads in huge abandoned cities with gangs roaming wild causing havoc among the survivors. That's what I've read before. But that is not this book. The ocean is the villian here. Yes, the world has heated causing the ice caps to melt, oceans to rise, and hypercanes to form. It's something that our world, the real one, could conceivably experience at some point in the not too far-away future if you listen to all the global-warming warnings. Rising oceans being at the top of the hazards along with wildfires and relentlessly dying crops. This story starts in the American Museum of Natural History in New York City where Norah (Nonie) and her family are desparately trying to preserve history for future generations. Things have deteriorated so rapidly that they fear nothing will be left to remember and to perhaps help rebuild civilization as it was once when so many advances had been made and then lost. When the hypercane hit, what they thought was indestructible wasn't. And they had to leave to try to find a place where they could survive. There aren't many people left in this world. But those who survived have spent every moment scraping to survive a little while longer. The competition for depleting food sources and medical supplies is ferocious, and not everyone will survive. This book kept me riveted from beginning to end, and I can highly recommend it to anyone who appreciates a good story, whether it's in a genre you usually tend to enjoy or not.

I really enjoyed this apocalyptic novel with a new slant, The whole world gets basically destroyed by water and Nonie, Bix, Keller and Dad made a life living on the roof of the American Natural History Museum aka Amen.They decide to leave to attempt to find the farm that should be a safe place for everyone. Their adventures vary and they encounter a variety of people along the way, some helpful & some evil. The characters are interesting and I liked the way their game of identifying insects ties the book together. One notable detriment of this book for me is the first part is very preachy about the use of Indigenous knowledge and technology by non-indigenous people. I feel like if it’s the end of the world then people would use whatever help they can get.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for a copy of this book..

This book is absolutely perfect for fans of Station Eleven and books like it. It captures the end of the world in a beautiful literary style and focuses on the preservation of humanity rather than mere survival. The backdrop of a museum and the POV of a young teen are perfect choices to view this "World as it is" and creates a beautiful blend of innocence and hunger for knowledge that no other main character could've offered.

I do wish there was a bit broader picture of the new world presented, but it makes sense that the POV character would have limited understanding of anything beyond what she's experienced or been told. If you enjoy literary style writing and are okay with a slow paced story, I highly recommend diving into this one.

In this powerfully compelling dystopian tale of climate change, toxic floodwaters have taken over much of the mainland, crops have failed, the army has move inland, the U.S. president takes refuge in an ocean liner offshore, and waves of refugees are constantly on the move. A few folks who worked at the American Museum of Natural History had keys and as water breached New York Ciity’s floodwalls, they raced over to a rooftop refuge behind the locked museum doors to escape what eventually became known as the “Old City.”

The Museum (“AMNH”) gets abbreviated to being pronounced AMEN, in respect and awe of the shelter it gave them. Nonie comes to AMEN as a young teen along with her older sibling Bix along with father and her mother who worked there. The small group of survivors takes on as their conservationist mission to save, and to catalog in a Museum Logbook, as many of the collections as possible. Nonie creates her own Water LogBook – cataloguing all the storms, floods, droughts, and surges. Nonie and Bix learn to hunt in the above water parts of Central Park, escape wild roaming dogs, and avoid “The Lost” which are all the displaced refugees seeking shelter and potable water. Of note, the AMEN community lets no Lost in their doors out of fear and protection of the Collection from being ransacked.

And it turns out that through a series of tragic events including a water borne Dengue type virus and a “hypercane” – a huge leap up from a hurricane, that day arrives and Nonie, Bix, their father, and another man Keller embark in a Museum display canoe out onto the toxic waters of the Hudson to head up north to a farmland belonging to her mother in western Massachusetts that has held out as a possible escape if they ever need to flee the museum. Their treacherous trek, filled with both physical hazards, death, dangerous people, and a deeply troubled walled town, has them fleeing to see if a second refuge can be found.

You get swept up into the story and its fast-moving waters and hold your breath to see who will survive and to glimpse a glimmer of a future out there in which humanity might once again thrive.


Thanks to St. Martin’s Press and NetGalley for an advanced reader’s copy.

3.5 rounded up!

ALL THE WATER IN THE WORLD is a perfect dystopian novel for those that love the genre. Written in beautiful prose and a nonlinear timeline, it mixes the story of Station Eleven with the action of The Day After Tomorrow. The story, as told through the perspective of Nonie, is one that explores the idea of connection, family, and the damage we are doing to our planet. However, on a personal level, I didn't fully connect with the narrative style, which impacted my enjoyment of the novel itself.

As previously mentioned, this story is beautifully written and mixes the character driven aspect with action. The world that the author envisions is one that is unique, but also scarily plausible. The writing is gorgeous and tells of a world where people must not only trust each other, but form found families, as the world slowly succumbs to a rising sea level, disease, and the conflicting parts of human nature. It makes this a complex novel, but one that is interesting and makes you think.

However, what makes this story beautiful is also what made me lose some interest in the story as a whole. As told by Nonie, a child, the narrative style did not appeal to me personally. Because this is told through the eyes of a child, I felt that I missed a lot of information and that there were large fixations on the water itself, as that is what Nonie is interested in and feels connected to in this chaotic world. As a result, I didn't really feel engaged with the novel. And the pacing was a bit off for me. It was very slow and reflective towards the beginning, with action and flashbacks interlaced. And then it became all action, but not enough reflection for me to care about what the characters are experiencing.

Overall, if you love reflective stories, character driven novels with action, dystopian novels, slower storylines, and beautiful prose, this is your novel.

Thank you to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

“I can feel water and I can feel heavy weather on the way. ”
Here are reasons to read the SciFi book:

Glaciers - in a world where the earth has flooded and the glaciers melted
Museum - there is a small community living in the Museum of Natural History
Storm - but when when a storm wipes out most of their community
Safety - Nonie and her family must race to escape to safety, taking with them the logbook filled with their lost collections and information

When I heard about this book, I was surprised to hear it was based on stories from people in Iraq and Leningrad who tried to protect their collections during war times. While it was fast paced in a few parts, and suspenseful in others, if you watch any end of times movie, you will be familiar with the people this community meets along the way. It is almost expected to encounter selfish people desperate to survive, and this book definitely has a discussion about what this means in the bigger picture. While I thought it was beautifully told, I have to admit I got lost with the large amount of characters. I wish there was more time devoted to getting to know them.