DRY by Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman is all about the
Tap-Out, the result of a major drought in Southern California which has been going on
for a while. What makes this novel so
vivid and relevant is the absolutely remarkable way that the Shustermans use
multiple narrators to relate the events after Arizona and Nevada decide to shut
the floodgates on any water supplies to California: “[Mom’s] watching the TV,
where a news anchor is blathering about the “flow crisis.” That’s what the
media’s been calling the drought, ever since people got tired of hearing the
word ‘drought.’ Kind of like the way ‘global warming’ became ‘climate change’
and ‘war’ became ‘conflict.’”
Are you thirsty yet? You will be when reading this dystopian survival
story which centers on Alyssa and Garrett, a sister and brother whose parents
leave to look for water and don’t return. The siblings team up with Kelton (his
Dad is an ex-Marine survivalist) and Jacqui who says, “I’m disappointed by
people – how weak they are, how frail their psyches must be to allow a water
shortage to turn them into murderous mobs.”
A “compulsively readable and unnerving tale” per the Horn Book review, DRY
received starred reviews from Booklist,
Kirkus, Publishers Weekly and School
Library Journal.
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