Dry

 It is very rare that I give a book 5 stars. 

Even more rare is finding a book that draws me in so deeply, that I finish it in less than a day. If not for my day job, this definitely would have been a one sitting read. 

I can count the number of titles that have been given this honor on one hand. And for the pleasure of giving me such a great story to read, I wanted to express my thanks to both authors. Now for the gritty details of the review...

It is my policy to try and avoid spoilers. Despite my impatient nature, I'm not one of those weirdos who turn to the last page in the book and read it first. I want to reach the conclusion when I'm supposed to. So I will leave each of you to discover how the story ends on your own. 

In Dry, parts of Southern California end up in a massive drought called the Tap Out. So named because you turn on the faucet and nothing comes out. It's not as if the drought was an overnight event. It happened over weeks but no one was prepared or concerned until there was no water to be found anywhere. And humans, in their desperation will do anything and I mean ANYTHING to get a drink of water. For example, there was a part where teenage girls are selling their bodies to earn bottles of water for their family members. 

The book is YA fiction, so the author makes his point without needing to show the dirty details. I appreciate that because I passed this book along to my own 14 year old son once I finished reading it. Of course, we don't have too much time to feel sorry for these poor girls or to feel disgusted by the person exploiting them, because we are concerned how our main characters are going to survive without resources or their parents during this crisis.  

Overall, Dry had me feeling like I was reading the Doomsday Preppers Manifesto. Don't let that scare you. It wasn't preachy or creepy. It was more like an overly smug "I TOLD YOU SO." It left me thinking about all the luxuries I take for granted on a daily basis. And any book that makes you think or ask questions deserves to be called a work of art. 

There were places in this book that shocked me, such as pinning your hope for survival on a secret stockpile of supplies, only to arrive in the height of the crisis and find that one of your own family members has decimated the stockpile (I didn't see that coming). Or when a certain character is killed by his own parent. After you've lived a while or read a few hundred books, you start to spot the cliches and can easily predict where the story is going. It gets tiring to see the same thing a million times. So any time an author throws me a curveball, I fall in love with the story more. And it probably doesn't hurt that I spent 5 years living in San Diego County and being familiar with many of the places mentioned in the book. 

The basic point I'm trying to make is that Dry is worth your time. Put down that roku remote and happy reading!