All the Water in the World

All the Water in the World

Eiren Caffall

Enjoyment: Quality: Characters: Plot:

In the tradition of Station Eleven, a literary thriller set partly on the roof of New York’s Museum of Natural History in a flooded future. All the Water in the World is told in the voice of a girl gifted with a deep feeling for water. In the years after the glaciers melt, Nonie, her older sister and her parents and their researcher friends have stayed behind in an almost deserted New York City, creating a settlement on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History. The rule: Take from the exhibits only in dire need. They hunt and grow their food in Central Park as they work to save the collections of human history and science. When a superstorm breaches the city’s flood walls, Nonie and her family must escape north on the Hudson. They carry with them a book that holds their records of the lost collections. Racing on the swollen river towards what may be safety, they encounter communities that have adapted in very different and sometimes frightening ways to the new reality. But they are determined to find a way to make a new world that honors all they've saved. Inspired by the stories of the curators in Iraq and Leningrad who worked to protect their collections from war, All the Water in the World is both a meditation on what we save from collapse and an adventure story—with danger, storms, and a fight for survival. In the spirit of From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and Parable of the Sower, this wild journey offers the hope that what matters most – love and work, community and knowledge – will survive.


From the Forum

No posts yet

Kick off the convo with a theory, question, musing, or update

Recent Reviews

Your rating:

  • Missy_Reading89
    Apr 12, 2025
    Enjoyment: Quality: Characters: Plot:

     All the Water in the World's is marketed as a gripping narrative of survival and adaptation in a flooded New York City. We follow our main character Nonie and her family as they are trying to navigate a flooding world.

    This is a story that should be right up my ally, but the pacing of this story really did not work for me. I read to almost 40% and the info dumping is just continuing in a way that pulls me out of the story. There are also time jumps in the form of recollections of thing that have happened in the past and while some can do this well I personally did not enjoy it in this book. I feel like the concept for this book is so interesting but for me the execution just didn't work.

    I appreciate NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for allowing me the chance to read this as an ARC. 

    0
    comments 0
    Reply
  • View all reviews
    Community recs if you liked this book...