ARC e-book via NetGalley
Provided by Atria Books (A Division of Simon & Schuster)
Publication: 15 Aug 2023


I think this could be categorized as both/either adult or YA.
A couple of moderate spoilers in latter 1/2 of review.

The setting in the near future feels so immediately now -- it IS what's happening now: uncontrollable wildfires, flooding... but Googins deftly weaves in world-building where we see how many things have changed, despite many others that are still familiar.

The sprinkling of "oldies" music throughout is very entertaining and funny - Taylor Swift, the Cranberries...

I also really liked how the three threads of the story are told -- the present day, (I think it's 16? 15? years after "Day Zero"); and then the backstories of Emi's dad Larch (told through his own perspective); and the backstory of Emi's mom, Kristina, particularly well-told through transcripts of Emi's interviews with her mom for a school project.

The book is pretty fast-paced, and the conversations rapid-fire (with no quotation marks), and narration almost stream-of-thought sometimes, but it all works together well and I read it VERY quickly - in a day - because I could not put it down.

You get the sense of things that never change - the rebelliousness of teenagers; the young people today who don't appreciate what the past generation did. But you also see the tragedy that the "Crisis" didn't NEED to happen. Larch's story of working on the flood barriers around empty million dollar apartments of Wall Street puts the situation in stark relief; the political stance of the book is very blatant.

Though the story flies by, the big questions of looming climate crisis that we are continuing to walk into, and the differing (but overlapping) priorities of Emi's parents stick with you for a long time after -- who is right? Larch who will protect his own daughter at any cost; or Kristina who will sacrifice anything to preserve a better world for all . . . .

I would have liked to know how/if Emi and Larch were ever able to get back in touch with Lucas, but this is just my wishful thinking & wanting to make sure all my favorite characters end up ok. I'd read a sequel that branched off from this - Emi's future or Lucas' life...

"That's the thing about working together. Mutual aid. . . . You can save the world. But it's also the problem -- getting everyone to work together. You have to make it happen. The advantage of being alone is you don't have to convince anyone. The disadvantage is you have to convince yourself."

Highly recommend!

I am glad to see that because more and more writers address the issue of climate change, a new sub-genre has emerged: cli-fi, speculative fiction that imagines how we, as human race, react to the climate disasters brought upon by ourselves. The Great Transition by Nick Fuller Googins is one of them. After decades of warning signs, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet finally collapses. Global sea level rises above 3 meters. All major coastal cities are lost. Yet, instead of descending to total chaos, the world (especially the US) kind of pulls through and survives.

Spoiler

Are American people capable of seeing what truly matters and unite across color and religion lines?

The Great Transition is set in a post-climate-change world that has been utterly changed by climate disasters and the “great transition” afterwards.

It’s rare to find a near-future speculative fiction about climate change that is not dystopia. Although it is not an utopia, it has a positive atmosphere with a mixed socialism and capitalism flavor.

Spoiler

Yet, the repeated “revolution is not a dinner party” by one of the characters just makes me cringe. My biggest problem is that the main character Emi, a teenage girl and a child of survivors, has anorexia. How utterly impossible. Anorexia is a modern, western phenomenon influenced by popular but unhealthy body images. It is socially contagious and only thrives in a world that has abundance of food. None of these apply to a society that barely survived a world ending disaster.

Quotes:
P103:"I remember one study that got some attention after the Transition--it showed how suicides had dropped in direct relationship to enrollment numbers. Especially young people. Especially young men. I believe it. Sometimes heading back after pouring concrete all night by floodlight–the sky glowing red with dawn–the ferry captain would pull the horn for no good reason and we would all raise a fist and launch into “This Land Is Your Land” or some other song. Cheesy but it shot tears to my eyes. Partly from exhaustion. Partly from living the end of the world together. As a family. And doing something about it. Trying.”

Fast read. I enjoyed this debut book from one of Maine’s own. We read it for book club, I’ll be curious if there is much to discuss. I’m not sure if this would be considered speculative fiction, since it’s in the future, but it gave me a lot to think about (or worry about). One of the more interesting climate-change related premises I’ve read.

A view of the near future that seems plausible, especially in the respect that humans are always screwing up relationships.