I promised you guys that I'd review Not a Drop to Drink by Mindy McGinnis. I didn't tell you guys that there's some back story to this whole thing.
As you know, I'm a part of the Thurber House Young Writers' Studio, which often hosts visiting authors, poets, and other creators of fiction. Mindy stopped by one beautiful late summer evening with a power point, cards, and the cover of her book prominently displayed on the wall. My first thought was holy crap.
First off, let's just look at this cover.
It's beautiful. No sign of a teenaged girl in a poofy dress or a couple in some sort of loving embrace here, folks. And Mindy is absolutely lovely; charming and sweet and very down-to-earth. She also lives in the same state as I do (in fact, her protagonist lives in it, too) and for some reason that always just excites me a bit. So she talks about her writing process and about how she went from having a slew of words on some Word document to having this drool-inducing cover, a companion novel (with equally awesome coverage) In A Handful of Dust, and about how the process of being published works. And she didn't gloss over the waiting, the shark agents trying to scam hopeful authors out of their money, or how long it takes to even get a query accepted. She had power points. It'd be disappointing if it weren't so nicely laid out in pie charts.
Anyway, after meeting her and seeing her eyes light up talking about this dystopian YA book about survival and learning how to live instead of just make it through, I knew I had to own this book. At the very least, support an author I like and give it a read. Well, let me just tell you. It's being optioned as a movie for a reason, my friends. It's not often that I read books like this, but if everyone wrote like she does, then I'd revert to ten-year-old me, reading constantly and having my books confiscated because I would rush through tests and activities so that I could keep going.
Synopsis:
Regret was for people with nothing to defend, people who had no water.
Lynn knows every threat to her pond: drought, a snowless winter, coyotes, and, most importantly, people looking for a drink. She makes sure anyone who comes near the pond leaves thirsty, or doesn't leave at all.
Confident in her own abilities, Lynn has no use for the world beyond the nearby fields and forest. Having a life means dedicating it to survival, and the constant work of gathering wood and water. Having a pond requires the fortitude to protect it, something Mother taught her well during their quiet hours on the rooftop, rifles in hand.
But wisps of smoke on the horizon mean one thing: strangers. The mysterious footprints by the pond, nighttime threats, and gunshots make it all too clear Lynn has exactly what they want, and they won’t stop until they get it...
Overview: 5/5 Stars
This is one of those books that I recommend to everyone I see who asks. In fact, I let someone borrow it and drove forty minutes through driving rain and wind in a typical Ohio storm to get it back after they held it hostage for two months without reading it. To say that I enjoyed this book would be an understatement, as I read it completely engrossed on my plane rides to and from Spain. It has a very realistic, gritty feel to it that the cover conveys in its texture that I found to be a nice touch on part of the artist, and the color scheme of the cover conveys a certain muted mood that the beginning of the book takes up at first. It's a wonderful combination of the senses for the reader and takes advantage of how the reader experiences the book, plunging them into the world without that jarring sense of 'this is not what I expected'. And this story is more than just a girl trying to survive in the big, bad world. It's about how your world changes over time and how you have the ability to influence it, even if just a little.
Characters: 4/5 Stars
Protagonist Lynn is, as promised, gritty and logical. A survivalist, through and through. With a very interesting and complex relationship with her mother, she stands alone as a different entity as opposed to a carbon copy of the only person she's ever had a real intimacy with. Each new person introduced into the cast of regular characters - and there are few - has a different voice but similar elements to each other, effectively binding them together into one group whether Lynn likes it or not. As a relatively sheltered teenage girl, Lynn navigates the more sordid parts of being around others like anyone would - with awkwardness and embarassment. She doesn't blink when she shoots someone, but take one look at a strange boy and she's out of there. I feel you, Lynn. I feel you. By no means a perfect character, Lynn attempts to navigate her world as best she can while it grows, changes, and gets a little more moral.
This book is one of the rare ones that can get away with mainly being about one person as opposed to their relationships among others, and the characters besides Lynn are truly relatively minor. Yet there is still a palpable connection between her, her neighbor that stumps along in the house off to the side of her, and the new people who come through, the good and the bad. Part of what characterizes them is Lynn's immediate judgement of them before more experience around them breaks it down, and the other part is their sparingly-described actions and frank speech. There is nothing flowery about anyone in this book, and given the mood and the personality of the protagonist, that's the way it should be.
Plot: 5/5 Stars
The plot structure in this book, if studied, is quite clear. However, while reading it seems to be a simple account of a girl's life, surviving in the Ohio wilderness for herself and watching out for strangers. There is no sense that 'oh, I'm in the rising action', 'there's the climax', or 'wait, is this book over, I thought there would be more?'. Rather than take the approach of other writers in her genre, McGinnis chooses to expertly weave a rather simple plot as opposed to throwing together an enormously complex one and tying it off with a square knot and hoping it holds. The initial slow start lulls the reader into a sense of security which immediately is dispelled by sudden events, much like a person would experience actually surviving as Lynn does. Instead of leading the reader through the animal attacks and people encounters, Lynn walks beside the reader who discovers her world and analyzes the situations she's in as she does. I never had that agonizing moment of 'how are you not seeing this?' while reading because I was figuring things out in tandem with Lynn. Beautifully done, as a writer, I'm envious of how smoothly this plot was delivered.
Author finesse: 5/5 Stars
McGinnis is no stranger to the lush wildness that is rural Ohio, and that is portrayed clearly in how she weaves the story and setting together, complimenting each other and playing with the reader's emotions and expectations as she goes. It's very clear that this book is her pride and joy in the way that she has attended to every detail. There are no loose ends the reader catches, no sense of dysphoria as characters run around who the reader doesn't recognize, and I personally loved the ending. It perfectly suited the mood, character, and plot, and was different enough for me to sit back and say, 'oh, wow', but not so out of the blue that I had to reread what had happened to make sure that it did, indeed, go down that way. To me, it feels very odd to separate characters from plot from setting from other pieces because they are all so organically threaded together. The brutally realistic voice of Lynn compliments the harsh landscape which invites people unlike either of these things in to change Lynn's world. Generally, it is difficult to compare a writer's finesse to something else, but in this case it's easy. Mindy McGinnis writes like warm chocolate: thick, deep, enveloping, and completely paralyzing the reader in word delight. This debut novel is one to be extremely proud of, and I am very proud to own this book and see it on my shelf.
Clickies:
@themoorewriter reviews Not a Drop to Drink by @MindyMcGinnis #YAlit [Tweet it!]
@MindyMcGinnis Not a Drop to Drink leaves @themoorewriter thirsty (see what I did there?) #YAlit [Tweet it!]
Thoroughly embarassed by how much I fangirl over this book,
Brie
As you know, I'm a part of the Thurber House Young Writers' Studio, which often hosts visiting authors, poets, and other creators of fiction. Mindy stopped by one beautiful late summer evening with a power point, cards, and the cover of her book prominently displayed on the wall. My first thought was holy crap.
First off, let's just look at this cover.
It's beautiful. No sign of a teenaged girl in a poofy dress or a couple in some sort of loving embrace here, folks. And Mindy is absolutely lovely; charming and sweet and very down-to-earth. She also lives in the same state as I do (in fact, her protagonist lives in it, too) and for some reason that always just excites me a bit. So she talks about her writing process and about how she went from having a slew of words on some Word document to having this drool-inducing cover, a companion novel (with equally awesome coverage) In A Handful of Dust, and about how the process of being published works. And she didn't gloss over the waiting, the shark agents trying to scam hopeful authors out of their money, or how long it takes to even get a query accepted. She had power points. It'd be disappointing if it weren't so nicely laid out in pie charts.
Anyway, after meeting her and seeing her eyes light up talking about this dystopian YA book about survival and learning how to live instead of just make it through, I knew I had to own this book. At the very least, support an author I like and give it a read. Well, let me just tell you. It's being optioned as a movie for a reason, my friends. It's not often that I read books like this, but if everyone wrote like she does, then I'd revert to ten-year-old me, reading constantly and having my books confiscated because I would rush through tests and activities so that I could keep going.
Synopsis:
Regret was for people with nothing to defend, people who had no water.
Lynn knows every threat to her pond: drought, a snowless winter, coyotes, and, most importantly, people looking for a drink. She makes sure anyone who comes near the pond leaves thirsty, or doesn't leave at all.
Confident in her own abilities, Lynn has no use for the world beyond the nearby fields and forest. Having a life means dedicating it to survival, and the constant work of gathering wood and water. Having a pond requires the fortitude to protect it, something Mother taught her well during their quiet hours on the rooftop, rifles in hand.
But wisps of smoke on the horizon mean one thing: strangers. The mysterious footprints by the pond, nighttime threats, and gunshots make it all too clear Lynn has exactly what they want, and they won’t stop until they get it...
Overview: 5/5 Stars
This is one of those books that I recommend to everyone I see who asks. In fact, I let someone borrow it and drove forty minutes through driving rain and wind in a typical Ohio storm to get it back after they held it hostage for two months without reading it. To say that I enjoyed this book would be an understatement, as I read it completely engrossed on my plane rides to and from Spain. It has a very realistic, gritty feel to it that the cover conveys in its texture that I found to be a nice touch on part of the artist, and the color scheme of the cover conveys a certain muted mood that the beginning of the book takes up at first. It's a wonderful combination of the senses for the reader and takes advantage of how the reader experiences the book, plunging them into the world without that jarring sense of 'this is not what I expected'. And this story is more than just a girl trying to survive in the big, bad world. It's about how your world changes over time and how you have the ability to influence it, even if just a little.
Characters: 4/5 Stars
Protagonist Lynn is, as promised, gritty and logical. A survivalist, through and through. With a very interesting and complex relationship with her mother, she stands alone as a different entity as opposed to a carbon copy of the only person she's ever had a real intimacy with. Each new person introduced into the cast of regular characters - and there are few - has a different voice but similar elements to each other, effectively binding them together into one group whether Lynn likes it or not. As a relatively sheltered teenage girl, Lynn navigates the more sordid parts of being around others like anyone would - with awkwardness and embarassment. She doesn't blink when she shoots someone, but take one look at a strange boy and she's out of there. I feel you, Lynn. I feel you. By no means a perfect character, Lynn attempts to navigate her world as best she can while it grows, changes, and gets a little more moral.
This book is one of the rare ones that can get away with mainly being about one person as opposed to their relationships among others, and the characters besides Lynn are truly relatively minor. Yet there is still a palpable connection between her, her neighbor that stumps along in the house off to the side of her, and the new people who come through, the good and the bad. Part of what characterizes them is Lynn's immediate judgement of them before more experience around them breaks it down, and the other part is their sparingly-described actions and frank speech. There is nothing flowery about anyone in this book, and given the mood and the personality of the protagonist, that's the way it should be.
Plot: 5/5 Stars
The plot structure in this book, if studied, is quite clear. However, while reading it seems to be a simple account of a girl's life, surviving in the Ohio wilderness for herself and watching out for strangers. There is no sense that 'oh, I'm in the rising action', 'there's the climax', or 'wait, is this book over, I thought there would be more?'. Rather than take the approach of other writers in her genre, McGinnis chooses to expertly weave a rather simple plot as opposed to throwing together an enormously complex one and tying it off with a square knot and hoping it holds. The initial slow start lulls the reader into a sense of security which immediately is dispelled by sudden events, much like a person would experience actually surviving as Lynn does. Instead of leading the reader through the animal attacks and people encounters, Lynn walks beside the reader who discovers her world and analyzes the situations she's in as she does. I never had that agonizing moment of 'how are you not seeing this?' while reading because I was figuring things out in tandem with Lynn. Beautifully done, as a writer, I'm envious of how smoothly this plot was delivered.
Author finesse: 5/5 Stars
McGinnis is no stranger to the lush wildness that is rural Ohio, and that is portrayed clearly in how she weaves the story and setting together, complimenting each other and playing with the reader's emotions and expectations as she goes. It's very clear that this book is her pride and joy in the way that she has attended to every detail. There are no loose ends the reader catches, no sense of dysphoria as characters run around who the reader doesn't recognize, and I personally loved the ending. It perfectly suited the mood, character, and plot, and was different enough for me to sit back and say, 'oh, wow', but not so out of the blue that I had to reread what had happened to make sure that it did, indeed, go down that way. To me, it feels very odd to separate characters from plot from setting from other pieces because they are all so organically threaded together. The brutally realistic voice of Lynn compliments the harsh landscape which invites people unlike either of these things in to change Lynn's world. Generally, it is difficult to compare a writer's finesse to something else, but in this case it's easy. Mindy McGinnis writes like warm chocolate: thick, deep, enveloping, and completely paralyzing the reader in word delight. This debut novel is one to be extremely proud of, and I am very proud to own this book and see it on my shelf.
Clickies:
@themoorewriter reviews Not a Drop to Drink by @MindyMcGinnis #YAlit [Tweet it!]
@MindyMcGinnis Not a Drop to Drink leaves @themoorewriter thirsty (see what I did there?) #YAlit [Tweet it!]
Thoroughly embarassed by how much I fangirl over this book,
Brie
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