Objectively, I think this is a really good book, which is why I'm annoyed that I didn't connect with it super well. I love the messages about how remembering the past and conserving the knowledge for the future is so important. The imagery was amazing. I'm not going to forget about the image of the scriptorium anytime soon either. However, I didn't connect with Nonie and her flavor of autism, which made it hard for me to care about the things other than worldbuilding.

The world is flooded; people live in small community groups - some are very dangerous; wild dogs are a big threat, as are common illnesses. A young girl who can sense storms tries to make sense of “The World As It Is”, survive and find reasons to hope. It was a slow and tense read but it was so very good. Thank you NetGalley for the advance digital copy!

Having really enjoyed Station Eleven I was excited to read this book that, in premise, seemed similar but with water. Unfortunately I could not get into this book. The book was written very well but the story just felt like it never picked up. It took me a long time to read this book and I felt like I was waiting for it to picked up but it just never did.

Thank you to Netgalley and to the publishers for allowing me to read this advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

Thank you NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for this ARC.

This story was beautiful, I absolutely loved this journey! I'm a sucker for a good post apocalyptic book, it's my favorite genre. This one was such a beautiful tale.

Its told through 13 year old Nonie's eyes and I loved seeing her growth through this. It reminded a lot of Life As We Knew It, one of my favorite series from a long time ago.

This is definitely a slow burn journey, alternating time periods of Nonie's life to tell the story. But it's a beautiful tale and beautiful journey. I absolutely loved getting thrown into this world of the world ending but finding your tribe in the middle of it all.

A sure way to pique my interest in a book is to invoke “Station Eleven” in the description. Emily St. John’s masterpiece is one of my favorite books of all time. So, I was happy to be able to read Eiren Caffall’s beautifully written book of an environmental catastrophe and those it left behind. Told by Nonie, a sensitive and brilliant teen who describes what a superstorm has done to those who surround her and how the people left behind try to save what they can from their old world to make a new one.

Thank you to NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press for an advance copy for review.

A child's story of found family and dead dreams. A happy ending clouded by death and loss, the hope of the characters comes through in the story.

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.