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    After the Flood
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    After the Flood
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    After the Flood
    Audiobook13 hours

    After the Flood

    Written by Kassandra Montag

    Narrated by Hillary Huber

    3.5/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this audiobook

    Children think we make them, but we don’t … They come into the world and make us. They make us by breaking us first.

    ‘Utterly gripping’ Karin Slaughter
    ‘Impossible to put down’ Booklist
    ‘Undeniable, brilliantly written’ Theodore Wheeler
    ‘Thrilling’ Lydia Kang

    The world is mostly water when Pearl is born. The floods have left America a cluster of small islands with roving trade ships and raiders.

    Pearl knows little of her father Jacob and elder sister Row, who left her mother Myra when she was pregnant with her. Between them they make do, with Myra fishing and trading to make ends meet, travelling from island to island on Bird, the boat Myra’s grandfather made before he died.

    Whilst their life is a tranquil one, Myra still aches for the daughter she once lost. When a chance encounter reveals that Row might still be alive, Myra packs up six-year-old Pearl and together they begin a dangerous voyage to The Valley, where rumours of violence and breeding ships run rampant.

    Along the way they encounter death and strangers, finally finding solace on board Sedna – full to the brim with supplies and an able crew – where Myra feels like she might be closer to finding Row than she has ever been. But to get to Row she will have to deceive everyone around her, betraying the trust of those she’s come to love, and ask herself if she’s willing to sacrifice everything and everyone for what might be nothing at all.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateSep 19, 2019
    ISBN9780008319588
    Unavailable
    After the Flood
    Author

    Kassandra Montag

    Kassandra Montag is an award-winning poet, fiction writer, and freelance medical journalist. Her work has appeared in journals and anthologies such as Midwestern Gothic, Nebraska Poetry, Prairie Schooner, and Mystery Weekly Magazine, among others. She holds an MA in English Literature and Creative Writing from Creighton University, and makes her home in Omaha, Nebraska.  After the Flood is her first novel.

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    Reviews for After the Flood

    3.5/5

    140 ratings30 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Really liked the premise, but the characters did little for me and I mostly found them fairly irritating or one-dimensional. Lots of potential here, though.
    • 4/5
      The author did a spectacular job describing the water laden landscape and the remaining settlements. (Although it was hard for me not to actively think of the movie “Waterworld”) I did have trouble with the boating terms, but a quick Google search helped me to understand them better. Montag also honestly portrayed Myra as not only a grieving mother but as a survivor. As a mother myself, I felt Myra’s anguish and hope alongside her, and the desperation and despair she felt when she was besieged by a setback. I often reflected on Myra’s actions and choices, and what I would do if I was in the same position.
    • 4/5
      In this post-apocalyptic story, rising seas have submerged most of the United States, and presumably the rest of the world's livable land. The survivors are forced to either subsist in small villages on the remaining high peaks that are still above water or live on the sea. Myra and her young daughter, Pearl, have a small boat from which they fish and trade. Pearl captures snakes, one of the remaining living animals, and keeps them as pets. Then Myra learns a piece of news that sends her on a desperate mission, dragging Pearl in her wake. Of course, there are all the dangers of being at sea: storms, hidden rocks, pirates. It's a pretty bleak world where there just isn't enough room for everyone. It just seems like this world had no hope for it--and yes, it did remind me of Waterworld. Myra's first-person narration sometimes came across as flat and mechanical, and probably the book goes on a bit too long. But I thought she, Pearl, and the supporting characters were presented well, as flawed, fully rounded people who don't always make the best choices and are trying to not just survive but build lives under impossible circumstances. Maybe I'd better avoid post-apocalyptic fiction for a while (although I have so many more on my TBR).
    • 2/5
      The premise of this book is intriguing, but there were so many holes in how this world works and the main character was unlikable with no depth.
    • 4/5
      I have an entire book case of apocalypse novels, and when I saw that review copies of this were available and that the book wasn't coming out until September I requested a copy. The apocalypse in this case is the flood of the title, though it serves more as a background for the plot than a defining element. The fuel of the plot is the maternal instinct and the match is the narrator's daughter being kidnapped. (This "spoiler" was in the description of the book posted by the publisher.) The story swept me right up as it moved from hope to disappointment to disaster and back again. It took me awhile to warm to the narrator, who constantly analyzes everything that happens and seemed very judgmental for someone who deceives and dissembles her way through much of the book. This is partly a product of first-person narration, which makes it impossible to get into anyone else's head or out of hers. I was eventually won over by the character's unswerving devotion to her child, and because although she judged others constantly, she was hardest on herself, and confronted her own actions and motives with unflinching honesty and courage. Like many of these books, the ending seems a little rushed, and there appears to be plenty of room for a sequel. I'm not a particular fan of multi-volume stories, but in this case the further adventures would not be unwelcome.
    • 3/5
      I was sent this book from the publisher/publicity team. My ratings and reviews will be my own personal opinions and are in no way influenced by publishers or authors who may have sent me books to review.Science Fiction tends to be a genre that I rarely reach for, but this one sounded really good. The cover also really grabbed my attention.I really loved the beginning of this one. I was immediately hooked around the story with Row and it was really what kept me reading throughout. I really enjoyed the parts that involved Row and the mystery around what happened to her.I do feel this went on a little too much at times. I needed a little more movement in the middle. However; the author did a great job of throwing enough in at the right moments to pull me back in. Every time I would get to a point of wanting to give up on this one, something would happen to pull me back in.I was happy that the story with Row picked up at the end too. Overall, this was better than I was expecting.
    • 4/5
      In this dystopian world that is now covered in water except for the tallest mountains, you have a mother and her young daughter sailing alone catching fish to trade for necessities. Myra had given up looking for her older daughter, Row who was kidnapped by her husband while she was pregnant with Pearl. Years later when Myra hears that Row is still alive, she is determined to find her. Throwing her normal caution aside, they set sail to find Row and find a man floating in the wreckage of his boat. While Myra doesn’t want to pick him up, Pearl insists. Daniel is a navigator and his skills are needed to get to the encampment near the Arctic Circle where Row was last seen. When Myra’s boat is wrecked, they are picked up by a much larger ship and Myra realizes that she now has the means to make this difficult trip if she can convince the captain and crew to change their plans for sailing south to heading north.This is really more of an adventure story. It’s filled with pirates, brave women, survival, battles and a little touch of romance. But, most of all, it’s a story of how a mother will do whatever it takes to find her missing child. While I did like this book, it was easy to put down for several days at a time (something I don’t like) but when I put in the extra effort to keep reading and not get up, I did get caught up in this great adventure.
    • 5/5
      The world has flooded presumably caused by global warming leaving the people behind either living at high altitudes or on boats. A woman and her daughter are living at sea and are trying to locate her other daughter and husband who left one night without them. She can't understand why. During their quest they meet all manner of good and bad characters landing them eventually in Greenland where she heard they went. The dust jacket indicates this novel is to made into a movie. It will be interesting to see what they do with it.
    • 4/5
      Overall, the story was interesting. There were some parts where Myra does exactly what she knows she shouldn't do and tries to justify it, which were a little annoying to read through after the 3rd time it happens. The setting of the story was unique and not what I was expecting.
    • 2/5
      After the Flood follows a mother's quest for missing daughter on a flooded Earth. What could be an immersive story at times was hampered for me by some weak worldbuilding. Here the world has been flooded save for tops of mountain ranges, but how this happened is only vaguely referred to. There was not only a "long" flood caused by rising sea levels (likely due to climate change, but not explicitly stated), but also some unspecified cataclysm that rapidly covered almost all land in just six years.This would be okay to overlook as an excuse for an interesting setting, but the few isolated villages and settlements lack distinct character. Montag is very good at developing her main character, but this also seems to provide another weak point: the story is set over a hundred years in the future, but never feels like it. Yes, the world was in crisis, but our main character Myra's flashbacks never allude to any differences in technology that likely would have developed over this time. This may have worked better in a more fantastical setting, or perhaps in the more immediate future.The plot itself also seems to rely too much on coincidence to move Myra to where she needs to be. Learning her first daughter is still alive from a random pirate, okay. Except Myra can't navigate to where she is-so enter a shipwreck survivor who happens to be a navigator. When her own boat sinks, convenient rescue comes in a larger ship crewed by a friend of a friend.There are some well done encounters with pirate gangs and some of their creepy victims, but a large chunk of plot revolves around a cliche "lie revealed" plot, with Myra attempting to trick the ship's crew into traveling to her daughter's alleged location. After the Flood had some promise, but just didn't live up to the hype for me.A review copy was provided through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program.
    • 4/5
      For me, a lot of the fascination with dystopian and/or post-apocalyptic books (and tv shows and movies) is imagining how or whether I would be able to cope. This novel does a really good job at providing the answer for one particular women, who is trying to survive on Earth when most of it has gone underwater and her family has fractured. It's a good story, well told, and kept me turning pages - I blew through it in a weekend. It strains plausibility in some places (a few too many coincidental meet-ups) - but not in Myra's feelings or behavior. Definitely a good read for anyone already inclined to this kind of story and also for others who might be interested in a story of survival in any circumstances.
    • 3/5
      After the Flood is a dystopian novel, which is why I chose it, and the concept seemed very interesting. The world had flooded, but the author doesn't explain much about how or why this happened. One has to assume things, like global warming, earthquakes, etc. The main character is Myra, whose husband deserted her, taking their daughter Row with him. Eventually she gives birth to another daughter, Pearl. They live on a boat, and together they set out to find Row.They have many adventurous mishaps and meet many people. That's the best I can describe the rest of the book. I found it to drag a bit in many areas, making me less than enthusiastic about continuing my reading. But I did, and I can't say the ending was very satisfying. It's a good concept, so you'll have to decide for yourself if you choose to read it.I received this book from Library Thing's Early Reader club.
    • 5/5
      2019 is proving to be a banner year for fans of dystopian fiction. And for the first time ever, the annual Book Chase Fiction Top Ten list may just end up containing multiple dystopian novels. Already this year, I’ve read three of my all-time favorite novels of that type: Christina Henry’s The Girl in Red; C.A. Fletcher’s A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World; and now Kassandra Montag’s After the Flood. What makes these three so special to me is how effectively each of the authors develops their main characters – regardless of which “end of the world” scenario they have chosen. It helps, too, that each of the books explores the adaptability of children who suddenly find themselves living in (or being born into) a world in which just making it to the end of the day can be considered a major achievement. It's little insights like this one that make After the Flood so believable:"Pearl had to do everything early: swimming, drinking goat's milk, potty training, helping me work the fishing lines. She learned to swim at eighteen months but didn't learn to walk properly until she was three. Instead of walking, she scuttled about Bird (their boat) like a crab. Her childhood was the kind I'd read about in frontier stories, the children who knew how to milk a cow at six or how to shoot a rifle at nine." (page 80)After the Flood takes place just over 100 years from now after rising floodwaters and heavy rains that sometimes lasted for years have so completely flooded the world that survivors are limited to living in mountaintop colonies surrounded by what has effectively become one gigantic ocean. Governments, armies, and policemen no longer exist in what has become very close to an “every man for himself” world. And that’s why some, like Myra and her seven-year-old daughter Pearl, have chosen to live on their boats , venturing onshore only long enough to trade surplus fish for the necessities they cannot provide for themselves. Myra has already lost one daughter, Row, who was stolen away by the girl’s father when he abandoned the then-pregnant Myra to the floodwaters that were about to flood Nebraska. Understandably, Myra trusts no one now – and she is more than willing to kill anyone who threatens Pearl.But everything changes when Myra learns from a stranger that Row has been spotted in a slave colony in what used to be Greenland – and that the young girl will soon be moved into one of the large “breeding ships” parked offshore. Now, desperate to reclaim her daughter before it is forever too late to save her, Myra and Pearl begin a new adventure that will only succeed if they learn to trust strangers. Myra knows that her boat is much too small to survive the long voyage into freezing waters and that she and Pearl won’t be able to steal Row back on their own. When they are invited to live with others aboard a much larger vessel, Myra realizes that she may have solved both her biggest problems: now she has a way to get to The Valley and enough people on her side to make Row’s rescue possible. But does she dare tell them the real reason she wants to go to The Valley? And if she lies to them, placing their lives in danger, hasn’t she turned into exactly the kind of person she was so afraid of just a few days earlier?Bottom Line: After the Flood is what dystopian novel fans are always looking for, a world they can immerse themselves in for a few days – but one they probably would not want to live in no matter how much it fascinates them. Montag doesn’t hit a false note in this one despite my fear that the climax she was heading for would turn the novel into just another run-of-the-mill thriller with a high body-count. I needn’t have worried. Montag is too good a writer to let that happen – and she proves it in After the Flood, her debut novel.
    • 5/5
      Rising floodwaters have taken over most of the world. Groups of marauders have begun taking over, enslaving those who are left. Myra and her daughter Pearl make a living on the water, fishing and bartering. 8 years ago, Myra's eldest daughter Row was kidnapped by her father. When Myra hears that Row is alive and living in a marauder's colony, she is determined to reach her. When Myra's ship is wrecked, she and Pearl join forces with a larger boat. Through lies and deception, Myra convinces them to sail to the marauder's colony.This was an interesting and engaging story. The characters were realistic and dynamic and the book was well paced. I would love to read more books set in this world. Overall, well worth picking up.
    • 3/5
      I started off with optimism for a well written Post Apocalyptic novel with a strong female lead, but I ended a bit disappointed. I found the main character's story arc, a mother's quest to find her lost daughter in a hostile world, to be compelling and reminiscent of Away, by Amy Bloom, which is a great read. In this future improbable water world, I became distracted by basic scientific, seamanship and survival details, which kept me from engaging in the plot and characters as much as I had hoped.
    • 3/5
      An adventure post-apocalyptic novel of a women with one of her daughters on a journey to find the lost daughter taken by her husband. A massive flood occurs that leaves available land to be sparse and people to be cruel. The book starts the story right away. The POV is all from the mother. The character is well-written with motivations mainly seen through quick flashbacks. Some of the supportive characters are interesting, but most of them I wouldn't be able to tell them apart. There are a few moments that are just too convenient, but they do keep the story moving forward. The author writes action sequences in a way that makes them very exciting, but all the writing outside of those moments can be more dull and repetitive. Problems aside, overall I did enjoy the book.
    • 4/5
      I thought I was over the doom and gloom of dystopian novels, but I thought wrong. This inventive new take on a world that has flooded had me riveted from the get go. A young mother and her daughter must survive in a world nearly completely flooded. Armed with only their small boat and fishing prowess, they must navigate a society completely torn apart by flooding. Unwillingly to trust anyone except for her daughter she decides that she must track down her first born who was stolen from her by her husband years ago. For once she has a lead and she will stop at nothing to get her back after living with a hopeless dread for years. Filled with pirates, badass women, survival, adventure, and romance; I ADORED this novel and look forward to more from this author! Super fast paced and full of intrigue!
    • 3/5
      It has happened. The climate change the scientists have been warning us about for years. The incessant rain has eliminated all our coastal cities. Climate refugees are heading for the middle of the country. Soon though even those cities will be covered with water. Myra and her daughter live in the boat her grandfather built for them before he died. She is searching for the daughter her husband had left with, when the water kept rising. A timely novel, climate change has been a topic much written about in recent years. An adventure story featuring a strong female character, a mamma bear who continually fights for the daughter she has, and the one that is lost. As in many disasters there are those people who will help, against those who take advantage. A fast moving story as there is so much action, though at times this was too much. Also eye rolling on my part accompanied some of the happenings. It was though an entertaining read. Definitely an "I am Woman hear me roar"type of book.ARC from Edelweiss.
    • 3/5
      This “cli-fi” book (post-apocalyptic book dealing with climate change from global warming) begins with a great six-year flood that followed The Hundred Year Flood. The continuous flooding not only caused many deaths, but migrations and fighting over scarce resources. A number of raider crews dominated the seas as well as small colonies on land, offering protection in return not only for provisions but for young girls, put on “breeder ships” used to “grow the raider crews.”When the story begins, Myra, heavily pregnant, is abandoned by her husband Jacob when the flooding finally reaches them. He takes their five-year-old daughter Row (short for Rowena) and leaves without a word on a boat with others.The story picks up seven years later. Myra and her second child Pearl, now seven, live on a small boat, trading fish when they can, and asking at each dock if anyone has seen a child fitting Row’s description. She finally hears that Row was seen in a raider-controlled colony called The Valley in the former area of Greenland, and that Row is about to be put on a breeding ship. Myra is desperate to get to her.For the rest of the book, we follow Myra and Pearl and their efforts to get to The Valley. After their boat is destroyed in a storm, a larger boat takes them on, and treats them like family. But Myra deceives them, telling them stories of an alleged halcyon place in Greenland, so they will change course and help her get to Row. It’s a long journey, however, and over time we learn they are all lying in different ways about their pasts. Moreover, before long, the pirates are after them.Discussion: Myra is furious each time she finds out someone else was harboring a secret, even though she is the biggest liar of them all. Moreover, her lies and schemes have mortal consequences. She feels a bit guilty from time to time, but mostly she is totally self-absorbed and obsessed with what she herself wants rather than acknowledging what anyone else wants or needs. Somehow this doesn’t stop everyone from adoring her. Well, everyone except for this reader.As for Pearl, she reminded me of some kind of demon child from horror movies. The men in the novel are so one-dimensional they might be invisible except for their irrational attachment to Myra.I also got the impression the author wanted to impress us with her knowledge of sailing terms and techniques, so she repeatedly invoked them ad infinitum.Evaluation: I not only found the protagonist to be despicable, but I also thought the plot in general was boring and repetitive.
    • 5/5
      Myra and her daughter Pearl live on a boat after the majority of the earth is covered in water due to global warming. There are settlements on the mountain tops that still protrude from the seas, but they are often attacked by raiders. It's hard to trust anyone.I really enjoyed this dystopian thriller. I received an ARC from the publisher through Library Thing's Early Reviewers Program. Put this on your radar for Sept. 2019! Two thumbs up from me!
    • 4/5
      I received an advance readers copy of the novel "After the Flood" from the Goodreads Giveaway program. This is one of the latest in the increasingly popular sub-genre of futuristic catastrophic climate fiction. It is a strong stand-out because of the extent of the world-wide flooding it describes; the world is almost entirely ocean with only the tops of some mountains remaining as islands. And the story in this water-world setting is very compelling with well-written characters struggling with terrible peril from both nature and desperate people driven to the edge of civilized behavior to survive.At the center of the story is Myra, a mother who was living in Nebraska when the terrible flooding commenced. Her husband abandoned her and took her first daughter, leaving Myra pregnant and with only her grandfather left to help her build a boat to survive and help her through the birth of her second daughter, Pearl. The story goes back and forth between the very harsh water-world dystopia and Myra's memories of her life before the flood and the subsequent collapse of governments and normal life. Myra has a lot of strength and has been surviving as a fisherman and raising her daughter Pearl. However, she aches to find out what happened to her first daughter. Then, one day, she hears a rumor that might be a lead to where her eldest is located and what kind of danger she might be in. Myra is forced to make some terrible choices about who to trust for help and some complicated moral decisions for survival.This is not a story for people who 1) hate ocean settings or 2) reading about children in danger or 3) hate snakes - Myra's second daughter Pearl has a strange love and affinity for pet snakes. But it is a good novel about the indomitable force of a mother's love and a it's horrific vision of climate collapse.
    • 4/5
      I received this book as part of the LT early reviewer program. A mash up of Waterworld and The Road, After the Flood is a wonderfully paced post-apocalyptic thriller and the story of what lengths a mother will go to in order to save a daughter who was stolen from her. There were a few misses for me, the predictability of bits and the repetition of others, the overall plot was well worked and the characters were developed in a way that made them seem like real people. It moved with a quick page turning ease and held a few good emotional punches, despite the fact you could sense what was coming. I good summer read.
    • 4/5
      Received as an ARC from LibraryThing.Pregnant Myra's husband Jacob, looking for a better life, takes their daughter Row, and disappears. Myra is left with her grandfather to try and raise the new baby, Pearl. Sounds like a simple, if tragic story. But it's worse than that.This is in the future, when, apparently, global climate change has wrecked the planet with global flooding. Myra has to watch helplessly from a second story window as Jacob sails away from their home in Nebraska with Row.The story takes place when Pearl is around 7 (I think). Grandfather had built a boat in the attic of their home and they were able to escape the flood. But, in fact, there is no escaping the flood. Grandfather is long dead. Myra and Pearl fish off the coast of the Rocky Mountains and trade fish for supplies with the small villages struggling on the mountain slops, barely above water.Myra had been hoping to find Row, but had pretty much given up until she fights off a pirate who tells her he believes Row is alive and living in the semi-mythical Valley. Myra finds a map showing that the Vally is in what was once Greenland and immediately makes plans to go there.The story line about Myra searching for her long lost daughter while trying to keep her other daughter alive (and not losing her) is good. Myra learns that she has to trust other people to get along in the world and to complete her quest. A good lesson for anybody in any world.I had some problems in the beginning with this seeming to be a version of Kevin Costner's movie "Waterworld", but go over that. But it is basically the same story, Substitute "Valley" for "Land" and make the main character the little girl's mother rather than Keven Costner and you've got the story. There's even a part for the Dennis Hopper character although not so over the top.I chad problems with the Flood of the title. I'd just got done reading a pretty comprehensive book on the effects of climate change ("The Uninhabitable Earth" by David Wallace-Wells). Even under the most worst case scenario, I think we could expect a couple hundred feet of ocean rise. Kassandra Montag seems to be projecting several 1,000 feet of water rise. But I came to see the flood as more of a metaphor than a scientific fact.I also had minor quibbles with geography. She helpfully provides a map of North America showing the remaining land but sometimes where the characters are is muddled compared to the map. All in all, a good read.
    • 5/5
      A page-turner!Well-written debut by Kassandra Montag tells the story of Myra and her daughter, Pearl, surviving on the seas after floods have overtaken most of the earth. Living on a boat, fishing day and night, stopping in the few ports that have popped up in the mountains, and not trusting people.Peppering in information about Myra's past works well and does not take away from the flow of the storytelling, The memories support the current narrative. After a storm, Myra reluctantly saves a man floating on a raft. Pearl insisted. Daniel has navigation skills which Myra needs in order to get to The Valley, where her husband took her firstborn, Row, just before the 100 Years Flood. She has to get to Row before the raiders put her on a breeding ship. The ongoing internal battle of risking one child's life to save/find the other's is ongoing in Myra. How does one choose? There is no option other than to keep moving forward - toward Row.Along the way, Myra must lie and kill in order to preserve her mission. She warily agrees to join a floating community of survivors, captained by Abran, in order to have the means to get to Row. Only Daniel and Pearl know her true intention. They encounter raiders, their pasts, death, and life along the way.
    • 4/5
      Myra and her daughter Pearl have been sailing on their own for several years, eking out life fishing in a world mostly covered by ocean. The tops of tall mountains are all that remain of land. Myra's husband took their oldest daughter Row and left Myra while she was pregnant with Pearl. She tried to find Row at first, but soon realized that the search endangered Pearl, so she gave it up. When she gets news of Row, however, she starts the search again, and the novel details her journey to find her oldest daughter and the compromises she has to make to find her.After the Flood is a good dystopian novel that brings up many of the ethical issues raised in other dystopian fiction. The Road is one that comes to mind. Myra and Pearl are reminiscent of the father and son in The Road; Myra concentrates on survival, while Pearl wants to help people. Myra also realizes that she wishes she could give her children what she had briefly had: "It felt like cruelty to bury the earth, to take it all away. I'd look at Pearl and think of all she wouldn't know. Museums, fireworks on a summer night, bubble baths. These things were already almost gone by the time Row was born. I hadn't realized how much I lived to give my child the things I valued." The question of how much of the past to hang on to is another question that often comes up in dystopian fiction.This is a solid first novel, well-plotted, with a believable world.
    • 3/5
      An ambitious post apocalyptic novel. I think the narration would have been strengthened if it were third person, and there were a number of times where I felt I was being told character development and plot rather than shown through dialogue and action. The pacing and flow were good.
    • 4/5
      I received an advance reader's copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.Not another dystopian novel. Not another post-apocalyptic novel. Like all good novels, "After the Flood" is not just another post-apocalyptic dystopian novel. In it Kassandra Montag explores what it takes to remain human in the face of disaster. She uses the mother and daughter at the center of the story to delve into the questions that we all live with - how to live as a family and a society, how to trust others (and more importantly yourself), and what is really important. The plot is rather predictable but the characters are so well developed that you can't help be swept up in the story. All in all, a good swashbuckling tale that I would recommend for all readers.
    • 4/5
      “After the Flood” is a post apocalyptic book about a mother and her child trying to survive in a mostly flooded world full of violence, disease and starvation. While maybe not quite as dark as “The Road” it is a sad, dark book full of characters experiencing all forms of grief and loss. I thought the plot was a little far fetched when I started the book, but after reading the ending I forgave the author for that. Would recommend.
    • 4/5
      I would like to thank Library Thing for my advance copy of After the Flood by Kassandra Montag. I enjoyed the book very much. I though it moved along pretty well. The story however was kind of basic and I thought it was dragged out a little long. To me this was a high sea adventure which could have been also told in the past and not the future. Enjoyed the read though, great adventure.
    • 4/5
      After the Flood is a dystopian novel that follows Myra and her 7 year old daughter, Pearl, as they brave their watery world and search for Myra's oldest daughter, Row, who was kidnapped just before her sister was born. Myra struggles with the realities of her world: hunger, thieves, and gangs, as well as her own inner demons of guilt and mistrust. The book is a page turning adventure story, but Kassandra Montag's thoughtful prose turns the book into something more. After the Flood is a work of literary fiction that is well worth the read.