
Dry
by Neal Shusterman & Jarrod Shusterman
Southern California runs out of water. On a Tuesday. Everything breaks.
For you if
you want to understand what climate infrastructure failure actually feels like from inside a teenage survival story set in a place you recognize
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Southern California's water supply runs out. Not gradually — suddenly, completely, the taps going dry on a Tuesday morning. Alyssa is sixteen, her parents are missing, and she has her younger brother to keep alive. The Shustermans — father and son, both Californians — write the collapse of civilization not as a distant dystopia but as a very near future extrapolated from real drought data, real infrastructure fragility, real political failure. What makes this the most important climate YA novel for this age group is its specificity: this is Los Angeles, these are the freeways, this is what happens when the thing you never thought about — water — simply stops. The thriller mechanics keep you reading; the reality of the premise keeps you thinking.
Where This Book Lives
- Themes
- climate changesurvival
Part of a Reading Journey
Same pattern, different era
Different time, different place. The same thing keeps happening.
For the grown-up bookshelf
Same idea, written for a grown-up. Good for the adult in the room, too.
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