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Raft People (2012)

by M.L. Katz(Favorite Author)

3.71 of 5 Votes: 1

languge

English

genre

Science Fiction

publisher

Kindle Direct Publishing

review 1: An accident during a drilling operation in the Gulf of Mexico breaks off a rock shelf exposing a subterranean sea . This accident causes the Gulf to rise in sea level, add to this event the melting of glaciers in the Arctic and Antarctic and the waters continue to rise causing massive devastation. Of course, the government attempting to downplay the event causes hundreds of thousands of people to not worry about evacuating until it's too late. Heading out of town to higher ground up North is futile as the roads have become a parking lot and it seems the only thing left to do is to become....Raft People. Raft People shares with us the story of young Liz and her family and neighbor's as they build their own raft and prepare for the coming floods to take them to the "up above... more". This story is told from the perspective of an older Liz who has been asked to tell her story 15 years after the happenings of the Big Flood. As we are told the story, we are taken into the past and see things from the point of view of young Liz with the occasional commentary from the older and wiser Liz. We learn about Liz's family, her mother Leah and two brothers, Mark and Andrew. Andrew is quickly whisked away to the Navy so his part in the story is mostly over the radio communicating with his family. Mark is a genius when it comes to engineering and building the raft and takes on quite a bit of the construction design of Leah's Folly, the name of their raft. Other members who made up the majority of the crew are Rabbi Gersen, veterinarian Dr Peterson, his wife Shirley and her elderly father Mr Thompson and Dr Pham, a dentist. As Leah's Folly makes their way through the 'up above" they are joined by other rafts that band together and add on a few new members to their "family" one of whom is Daniel, who eventually becomes Liz's husband. A little on the slow side at times and definitely not as action packed as some disaster tales, Raft People has an edge over the action with its near realistic portrayal of what life would be like in this new world. There wouldn't be action and adventure around every bend. There would be days when all that was done was monitoring the gear, doing the chores and other various mundane acts. While it's not as fast paced as some books I've read, I truly enjoyed the story. I liked learning about what they did to build and fortify the raft they were building, how they prepared to live off the raft once they were afloat and the interpersonal relationships with the highs and lows that are a factor in normal life let alone living in a small space with a group of very different individuals.
review 2: I think this was a pretty complex topic, and the author thought it out pretty well. Since she is from the Gulf coast, shes probably had some experience with smaller evacuations - and that's why a lot of details seemed realistic. I also felt a strong emotional connection with the characters, and IMO - that's what keeps me reading a story. IMO - the book will strike a chord with people who are concerned about climate change and disaster prep., or just people who like apocalyptic / disaster adventures. Yeah I spotted a couple of typos, but have it on good authority - from the author - these are being cleaned up. It's hard for self-published authors to do everything at one time, especially new ones. I hope we hear from Ms. Katz again! less

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