Book Review: Water Wars by Cameron Stracher

Title: Water Wars

Author: Cameron Stracher 
Publisher:  Sourcebooks


Welcome to a future where water is more precious than gold or oil-and worth killing for.

Vera and her brother Will live in the shadow of the Great Panic, in a country that has collapsed from environmental catastrophe. Water is hoarded by governments, rivers are dammed, and clouds are sucked from the sky. But then Vera befriends Kai, who seems to have limitless access to fresh water. When Kai suddenly disappears, Vera and Will set off on a dangerous journey in search of him-pursued by pirates, a paramilitary proup, and greedy corporation.


My Thoughts


I really like the concept for this book - that our world has lost much of it's supply of water.  To me it sometimes seems like a very real possibility.  As I read the book I thought a lot about having barely any water would be like.  Long hot showers would be a think of the past! My kids running through the sprinkler in the summer would not happen.  So many things would be affected.


Water Wars did a very good job in creating a world that without water that was easy to buy into.  The things they did were very believable.  What I really liked was that Stracher referenced much of the United States that I know now when showing how different the world was.  It make it so much easy for me to relate to the world of the book.  For example they are next to a huge country that included what use to be Minnesota. I live in Minnesota now, so it was very interesting to see how it was described in the book void of its 10,000 lakes! It just made it that much more real.


So the world creating was amazing, but I was less excited about the story.  The core of the story itself was good especially once Vera and Will go in search of Kai.  To see how big business and the more common man reacted to the lack of water was great.  It was almost scary to think about the fact that what Vera and Will see could be reality.  I also liked the action in this part of the book.  Once Will and Vera start after Kai the action is nonstop and it held my interest. 


But where I had problems was in the details of the story.  There were times I felt like I must have missed a page or two because Vera would be talking about something, and I'd have no clue how she got to that.  It seemed like details were left out, but then show up later.  The first time Kai and Vera meet she thinks that night that she should invite him to dinner.  But I was thinking "how she doesn't know anything about how to find him".  Well it turns out he gave her his number, but that wasn't mentioned.  Things that happened several times and it through me off a bit.  It wasn't a huge deal, but for me it interrupted the flow of the story because I stopped to think about it.  Once the action really started this happened less, so that was good.


Final Thought: Over-all an interesting story but the world building really captured my thoughts and "what-ifs".
Best stick-with-you image:  A barren Minnesota
Best for readers: Who are wondering what might happen if we ran out of water
Best for ages: 12+


For the Guys? I think so.  Even though Vera tells the story Kai and Will are strong male characters they could relate too.