Over the long weekend I was looking for something short enough that I could get through it quickly on the train, and I happened to have this sitting on my TBR shelf. I’m also not an avid ebook reader, as regulars on my blog know, but I found myself turning page after page until there was no more left to read! It’s very short, and I finished it in an afternoon, which is more than I can generally say for ebooks…

I’m also not a big dystopia, or post-apo fan, but the blurb had me intrigued: what I do enjoy quite a lot are stories of hope. And I think this delivered pretty well!

Newton’s world is one where tech has disappeared, electricity is a thing of the past and raids are common. Within that though, the little commune of Osto has survived for a lifetime, as people work together to take care of their harvest and animals, craft their clothes and build new systems to evolve in this new world. It’s not all rosy though, and I appreciate that even within this tight knit community it’s made clear that there’s always, always gonna be conflicts, abusers, etc. There’s even a strong theme of domestic abuse for a few of the characters. So while it’s a story about hope, it’s not about blind hope.

But at the end of the day it truly is about cooperation and making the best of what you got, and communities coming together and building bridges. When you consider the state of the world today, especially with the climate crisis… I want to say “looming” but at this point it’s no longer looming, it’s definitely there… I think we need more of these kinds of stories that actually tackle the issue and what we can/could do in those situation, without it being just guns and violence. Hopepunk it is!