In a flooded future, a girl gifted with a deep connection to water navigates a post-apocalyptic world with her family, seeking safety after a superstorm breaches New York City's flood walls. The story explores themes of survival, climate change, loss, and the preservation of human history amidst a dangerous and evolving landscape.

Reader Review Summary

"All the Water in the World" is a beautifully written and imaginative post-apocalyptic novel that immerses the reader in a vividly realized future world reshaped by the disastrous effects of climate change. From the opening pages, Caffall's poetic prose and ability to conjure strikingly visceral imagery completely draws you into this eerily plausible vision of a flooded New York City.

The story is narrated by the young Nonie, a girl blessed with an almost supernatural connection to water that allows her to sense the rhythms and coming threats of the encroaching sea. Nonie is an instantly captivating character, whose childlike yet philosophical perspective brings an achingly pure emotional resonance to the upheaval and loss she experiences. Her voice perfectly captures the wonder, terror, grief and determination of someone experiencing such a radically transformed world.

Caffall's portrayal of the small community creating a tenuous home and striving to preserve priceless artifacts on the roof of the American Museum of Natural History is endlessly compelling. Their struggle to cling to the remnants of human knowledge and find purpose amidst the rising waters makes for a profoundly moving metaphor about the resilience of hope and the drive to persevere even in the bleakest of circumstances.

The novel excels at weaving in details that make this submerged landscape viscerally tangible, like the survivors navigating the Hudson River by canoe and spotting the ghostly remains of iconic landmarks poking up through the water's surface. Caffall conjures a beautiful melancholy as she depicts the reclamation of the city by nature after mankind's heedless ecological destruction.

Amidst the vividly rendered action set pieces, like the family's perilous escape from the museum during a catastrophic "hypercane," Caffall crafts powerfully introspective scenes meditating on grief, memory, and what it means to preserve human civilization. She offers glimmers of optimism amidst the darkness, embodied by the unbreakable bonds between Nonie and her loved ones and their dream of creating a new community dedicated to justice and harmony.

With its depth of imagination, linguistic grace, and undeniable emotional resonance, "All the Water in the World" is an extraordinary work of climate fiction that both haunts with its sobering scenarios and uplifts with its abiding message of hope prevailing even in the face of cataclysm. Eiren Caffall establishes herself as a tremendously talented voice in speculative fiction to be celebrated.