Name: The Water Wars
ISBN: 9781402243691

Cameron Stracher

In a world where water has become a precious resource, Vera and her brother befriend a boy who seems to have unlimited access to water and who suspiciously disappears, prompting a dangerous search challenged by pirates, a paramilitary group, and corporations.

The Water Wars

Sarah Sammis

The Water Wars by Cameron Stracher is an environmental devastation dystopia. Like Restoring Harmony by Joëlle Antony, it's set in the United States (well, what's left of it). Both are set in the near future in a time when certain natural resources — in this case, water, have become scarce.

Vera and her big brother Will live in Arch, Illinowa with their father and ailing mother. Without freshwater the old government has collapsed. Fresh food is a thing of the past, replaced by synth this and synth that. Will is convinced that the rationed water created by an off shore desalination plant is poisoning everyone.

In the middle of all that a new boy appears, Kai. What catches Vera's attention is that he pours the remains of a cup of water into the soil. It's a crazy, dangerous and illegal act. When she calls him on it, he replies that there's plenty more where that water came from and he knows how to find it. Thus their friendship begins.

It's a friendship fraught with peril. Someone who knows how to find fresh water in a world of water pirates and, corrupt warring governments is bound to be a dangerous and desirable person. When Kai and his father go missing, Vera and Will try to follow Kai's instructions to find the hidden source of water. That, though, only leads to their own trouble — trouble that takes them across multiple boarders and into ever more dangerous situations.

The Water Wars is a short, fast-paced book. I got so caught up in the adventure that I didn't worry about potential plot holes or secondary characters who lack depth.

Recommended by Book Purring

Leah Patton

I didn't like this book. It was an interesting idea though, I will give Cameron Stracher that. I mean, an absence of water in the world is an intriguing idea. But it was boring. The characters are unoriginal and seem almost removed from the story, as if they weren’t even in the story themselves. The writing was also awkward and I found myself thinking that even after the world basically ends, humans wouldn't relate to each other like this, just inviting strangers over for dinner? No.

ashley hopkins

Originally reviewed at Bookaholics Anonymous

Tuesday my friend and I were sitting at Braums (a fast food restaurant) and I was sitting there reading the end to this, and when I finished I'm like what if this were to actually happen? She looked at me and said "I don't think you'll have to worry about our generation, maybe our grandkids kids." The point I'm trying to make is that it could happen though right? We could run out of water, or at least it could all be contaminated. The ice caps could melt. Isn't that what the whole global warming thing is? (I'm not much of a political or whatever person.) I guess what I'm trying to say is that in that aspect of the story it's totally plausible. Another thing I like about this story is that (as far as I know) it's not a trilogy or anything like that. It's just the one book, and that seems to be a rare thing. I will say this even though it's one book it seemed like it could be left open if another decides to emerge.

The ending was in my opinion a little rushed and worked out a little to perfectly. I enjoyed the adventures or misadventures that they had getting to that point though.

As for the characters well sometimes you can connect with them and others times not so much. This is one of those instances where I didn't. It's not that I didn't like them because I did. I just didn't love them. I'd say if we were to meet it would be as acquaintances on a scale of enemies to best friends. Vera definitely was not the whiny type that we usually come across. When she wanted something she did it. She didn't think to much of it. I guess that could have been a good or bad thing depending on the situation. I enjoyed the fact that she was able to go on this journey with someone, her brother Will, when do you ever see the MC take a journey with someone (family none the less). Kai, is the love interest I guess you could say. I wanted to love him honestly, but I couldn't for some reason. I guess maybe because there wasn't enough of him since he disappeared. Later though we find out why he's disappeared, and what use he is to all these people who seem to want him. The water pirates were probably my favorite characters they reminded me so much of the pirates from POTC and the pirates from the movie Stardust. They stole water not to be greedy, but for other reasons which we learn. I <3 the pirates!!!

The only other dystopian I've read about water is Dry Souls which was good. I know there's one called Drought which I have on my shelf so I'll have to read that soon to see if I liked it any better.

It is a short book, and at times entertaining so if you want a short dystopian to read then give this a shot. :)

The Water Wars

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