Apologies for the late review! Work life and personal life got busy and there was just no time to sit and type. The actual writing has been light but the reading continued, don’t worry about that. When the world becomes too loud, I love to disappear under a blanket into an unknown world. Whether I’m creating the world or learning about it page by page. It’s been a while since I’ve had the time to just sit and read, I’ve missed it deeply. No matter how busy life gets, I will always make time to have a book between my fingers. It’s also been reigniting that creative spark, some of the new ideas I have are so great – I can’t wait to dive into those. Alright, enough about me, onto the review!
Another month has passed, another book has been read. This time we stepped into the post-apocalyptic world created by British author and poet Virginia Bergin. H2O follows 15 year old Ruby as she must learn to survive as a deadly rain wipes out the majority of the world’s population, turning all water deadly. The book acts as Ruby’s journal as she navigates her way through this new and scary world to find her father. The book was originally published in the UK as The Rain on July 17th, 2014. Later published in the US on October 7th, 2014 under the name H2O. It’s the first book of a two part series, the second book The Storm will be read later this year for sure. I’ve watched a lot of post-apocalyptic shows and movies, but I haven’t done much reading in the genre. I’ve had this book for a couple years now and finally decided to crack it open. I do enjoy the types of realistic horror ironically as jarring as they can be. The idea of toxic rain is definitely fascinating because it could happen. Rain comes from the atmosphere but there are all types of contaminants up there that could be absorbed, changing the chemical structure of the rain we see everyday. Can you imagine waking up one day and suddenly the rain is toxic, I mean what do we do in that situation? Water makes up 71% of the planet, what do we do if it becomes deadly? The idea is definitely terrifying but for a book concept? Man that shit is so cool! So let’s dive right into it.
As I mentioned earlier, this book acts as Ruby’s journal from the very first day the poison rain claims its first victims to about three weeks later as Ruby travels across England from her home of Dartbridge to find her father who currently resides in London. Imagine a 15 year old girl who is grief stricken from the loss of friends and family trying to travel across England while dodging deadly rain to try and find her father. Cell towers are down, internet nowhere to be found, laws being broken around every corner, and 15 year old Ruby is on her own. Now I enjoyed reading the book, but I was having a hard time staying immersed in the world due to it being in first person. First person point of view is not my favorite for novels, or any prose in general. I personally feel like it works better in poetry and any type of piece that can be performed. Another added hit was that it was told from a 15 year old’s perspective. Now I’m 25 almost 26 so being thrusted back into the headspace of a teenager was a bit jarring for me. I haven’t been in the mindset in a long time, there’s a lot of deep immaturity there which makes sense for the age. The differing maturity levels made it hard to stay immersed in the story emotionally at first. I think for me, what really connected me to Ruby was seeing the hardships she had to go through so young. Now obviously, I didn’t experience what she went through but I know what it’s like to have the rug pulled from under you so young and not knowing what to do next. Throughout the book, Ruby does this thing where she censors all curse words with a cute little butterfly drawing. She’ll be expressing her anger about something and then in the middle of a sentence there’s a butterfly where a word is supposed to be. That’s definitely something unique that I’ve never seen an author do before. It adds even more personality to the already loaded person that Ruby is. While it caught me off guard during reading at times, I did laugh every time I saw it. It matches Ruby very well plus it was fun trying to guess which curse words she was saying. She’s such a colorful young girl who is already navigating high school and first crushes, now she has to deal with the end of the world? Absolutely criminal.
Ruby’s lighthearted nature and adolescent cynical attitude creates the perfect atmosphere for storytelling here. This book details the horrors of a world where the most important thing a person needs becomes toxic and we see it through the eyes of a young girl who’s biggest issue at the time was trying to figure how to go to school the next day after making out with her crush Caspar McCloud at a party…in a hot tub. Minutes later, the toxic rain pours and her life changes drastically. She goes from riding cloud nine to experiencing a world of grief shortly after. Her immediate family is dead. Her friends are either dead or scattered across town in the rain aftermath with no way to contact them. Her only goal now is to survive and find her father. When we meet Ruby, she’s happy with life, a little self absorbed (but what teenager isn’t), and she has this witty and sharp attitude. Once the rain starts, only 27% of the human population has survived. That’s an insane fact to deal with at any age but Ruby tries her best to cope. She does a little mild shop lifting for clothes and make up when she goes on supply runs while others are killing people over food and shelter. She attempts to give herself a tan after losing her mother, brother, and step father as a way to cope and distract herself. She loved her life at one point and then within days, she hated everything that came with being Ruby. This book is a deep dive in survival and grief through the lens of a teenager and I think that’s what makes it such a stand out novel in this genre. The majority of the post-apocalyptic novels are focussed on a main character whose goal is to save the world, make things better for her friends and family, and be the voice of reason for the ones who are lost. None of those are priorities for Ruby, she doesn’t care about any of that. She doesn’t have to. She doesn’t have anyone but herself. Her being selfish is not a character flaw, she’s a child who just wants to live. The world’s problems aren’t hers to solve. And that is okay. She doesn’t want to be a hero, she shouldn’t have to at her age. The journal type of expression that the readers get from Ruby is eye opening and deeply personal. The scene where Ruby finds out about her mother and little brother is absolutely gut wrenching, I had to put the book down for a few minutes after that. The thought of losing my mother and little brother is already hard enough to think about, but imagine that all while being trapped inside our house with their bodies due to the toxic rain. There’s no burial, no funeral, no way to start properly grieving. Then immediately having to go into survival mode, not knowing when you’ll be able to just live.
I enjoyed this book, it took a little longer to get through it but I’m really glad that I pushed through. I recommend this book if you’re looking for another perspective in an end of the world type story. I have a ton of books on my list for this year, the next book in the series is definitely on that list now. H2O was just the beginning of Ruby’s new life and I’m excited to see what The Storm has in store for her when the time comes. Thanks for taking the time to read this, and for the patience. Maintaining a writing schedule is harder than actually sitting down and doing the writing I swear. April’s book review will be coming in the next couple days. I really enjoyed that one as well! So far I haven’t come across a book that I didn’t enjoy reading, but we shall see! Thanks again!
RealisticDreamer 