YA sci fi. Set on a future earth that is well down the path to climate apocalypse. Follows two teen girls, one living as a scientifically brilliant (and seemingly neurodivergent?) high-status resident of one of the aerial eco-cities that an older generation created as an attempt to reduce humanity’s impact on the planet, and the other living on an otherwise abandoned island and only in fragmentary possession of her memories. I feel like I should have liked this book more than I did. I’m all for a science fictional examination of the climate crisis – I mean, that’s why I decided to read it – and it went to significant lengths to pose relevant questions through its worldbuilding and story. Some aspects of the future it imagines felt quite compelling. In a technical sense, I think the story is clever – in particular, there are a couple of key reveals part way through the book that I didn’t see coming at all and that I thought really worked in terms of the story. But…something about the book just didn’t do it for me. It didn’t really succeed in drawing me into the world, and I think that was something about how it was written early on. There were elements of the premise that I was sufficiently skeptical about that they punctured my suspension of disbelief. While the mid-to-late-book reveals worked with respect to the story, not all aspects felt plausible in terms of how the social world works. And while it was thoughtful in some ways about its theme, it felt like the story was at best indirectly addressing the climate-related questions of relevance to its premise that I would find most interesting. So…perhaps it can be ascribed to lack of fit with me as a reader, but whatever the reason, I was disappointed.
Originally posted by Scott on Goodreads.