3 out of 4 stars
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When the year is 2035, and a young American woman narrates the on-goings of her life, she transports the reader to a world that's far from what we know today. Global warming is out of control, resulting in erratic weather patterns and the scarcity of essential commodities.
Bonnie Jane Hall's boldness prevails as she dissects these issues in Earthships, Book 2. In this work of fiction, Laurel Campbell lives with her family in Idaho; building underground Earthships for a living. The story focuses on her job, her family life, her political opinions, with the icing on the cake being how she and her family wade through these tumultuous times.
It's ironic that in an age where man has made significant technological advances, ordinary citizens have a less than ideal quality of life. The robots have taken over, leaving a majority of the population jobless. Laurel and her family are striving to stay above the poverty line, but their efforts are often diminished by outlaws whose only aim is to steal what little they have, coupled with frequent natural disasters that threaten to destroy their home. I applaud the author for integrating this theme into the story, as it projects a foreseeable future for many who will be hard-hit when the humanoid revolution sets in.
Although the government tries to offset the citizens' suffering by providing welfare for everyone, that doesn't address the core of the problem; high levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. A direct result of this is mass immigration due to uninhabitable environments, a rise in sea level, never-before-seen weather patterns like tornadoes in Idaho, and rapid extinction of animals. I'm not vegan, but I was especially pleased that in a bid to save the animals, the government placed a ban on poaching and commercial animal farming.
This book was eerily realistic; I often forgot that I was reading a work of fiction. I appreciate that it's written in the first-person perspective, as it felt like I was listening to Laurel narrate the reality of life in the Anthropocene. Amidst the chaos, Laurel and her family maintain a strong bond and have put measures in place to ensure that each of them is well-equipped with crucial survival skills. They also do their best to reduce carbon emissions; relying on electric vehicles and horses for transportation.
Eye-opening is how I'll describe this book because It induced a flash-forward of my life to the year 2035. Then, I want to live in a world better than what Laurel and her family presented. I also started thinking about the effects of climate change, a topic that rarely crosses my mind. Each chapter also opens with a powerful quote to which the events of the section relate. I was especially delighted when I came across a quote from Tolstoy. Earthships, Book 2 being the second book in a series, I can attest that it reads as a stand-alone. Readers who haven't read its predecessor need not be put off.
The story ends in juicy suspense, which serves as a building block for Earthships, Book 3. As I encountered some typos, mostly misspelled words, my rating for this book drops to 3 out of 4 stars. It's a thought-provoking read that I would recommend to preppers, environmentalists, climate change enthusiasts, policy makers, and educators.
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Earthships, book 2
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