All the Water in the World

A teen paddles out of a flood-ravaged Manhattan in Caffall’s high-tension dystopian debut. After New York City was sacrificed to rising seas, 13-year-old Nonie and her family stayed behind with a stubborn community of conservationists who made their home on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History. When a severe storm finally destroys the museum, Nonie, her older sister Bix, their father Allan, and another adult man, Keller, are the only survivors. Using a canoe from a museum diorama, they head out on the water, hoping to reach Nonie’s aunt’s farm in Tyringham, Mass. Along the way, they encounter wary helpers and strange communities and face dangers from both people and the violent weather, which Nonie has developed a skill for forecasting. The emotional ballast of the story, though, is Nonie’s flashbacks to their time at the museum, where former employees came together to try and save the collections and record as much as they could of Earth’s past as the world crumbled. Stories of plague, gruesome death, and Nonie’s mother’s slow decline from kidney disease paint a bleak picture of subsistence amid the group’s determined efforts to save knowledge. The plot will feel familiar to cli-fi readers, but it’s affecting nonetheless. Caffall should win some fans with this. (Jan.)