REVIEW: After the Flood by Kassandra Montag


Before I get started, I wanted to mention that I received an Advanced Copy of this book from William Morrow Books through Litsy. Thank you so much for this opportunity!

 Now, the review. First things first: I was excited to read this book because it was a post-apocalyptic story in which the main character was a middle-aged mother, not a teenage girl. I was interested to see the differences, and to explore the new world the characters live in. And I was pleased by it! I found the story powerful and compelling, and the characters to be real and driving forces of the plot.

 Let's get in-depth, shall we?

 CHARACTERS
The main character of After the Flood is Myra, a mother of two daughters who is alone with her younger child on the boat her grandfather built. Myra's one goal? To find her older daughter, Row, who was taken from her so long ago by Myra's husband that the younger child, seven-year-old Pearl, doesn't even know Row. This goal is Myra's driving force, and it is made very clear early on that she'll do anything to achieve this goal. Even if it means lying, hurting others, and manipulating them.

 I found Myra to be a very believable character. What loving mother wouldn't give anything to be with her children? I had a hard time liking Myra occasionally, as she's very much a manipulative liar for a large portion of the book, but in the end I liked her a lot more. Myra grew so much as a person over the course of the novel--from sacrificing others for her own needs to refusing to give up even one member of the crew she'd grown attached to. If you were to ask me, I would say that Myra learned the value of humanity as a whole, but I could be wrong.

 Now, the characters besides Myra. There's her daughter, Pearl, her husband Jacob, a man named Daniel that Myra and Pearl rescue, and the crew of a ship the three of them join up with. I liked Pearl immediately, as she added a sort of life to the story, and most of the crew I liked too. I wasn't sure about Daniel at first, as Montag spends a great deal of time pointing out his shadiness, making his actual goodness seem like an unneeded plot twist. Abran, on the other hand... well. He's the captain of the ship Myra and her group join, and he seems to be a great person, who wants to make a sort of democratic-socialist society where everyone has a say. As the book goes on, however, he devolves, being pretty consistently drunk and showing that he wants to be in charge over anything else. I didn't like him by the end--but he was a very compelling character.

 All in all, every character in this novel was compelling, realistic, and interesting to read about.

 PLOT
The plot of Myra tracking down her daughter seems simpler than it is. For one thing, the world is flooded. Literally, most cities are completely underwater, leaving only mountaintop settlements. Thus, getting from one place to another in After the Flood is quite unique, for its genre. The plot also deviates in several places, though never loosing sight of the initial goal--from nearly running out of food, to crew tensions, to escaping murderous raiders, each subplot leads furthers the story in some way, and has some impact on the larger plot.

 I also feel that the characters were good motivators of plot--rather than letting it happen, they make choices that move it along. This is a strength of Montag's writing, and is also something I have not seen much of in post-apocalyptic fiction.

 WRITING
I have to admit, I'd buy another one of Montag's books for her writing alone. She does an excellent job of letting us see Myra's thoughts and understand her motivations while not painting her main character as perfect in any way, which I liked a lot. She also is very good at describing both action and description, while not bogging the story down.

 RATING
After the Flood gets four stars from me! Not an instant favorite, recommend-it-to-everyone-I-meet kind of book, I do still really like it, and will totally re-read!

 RECOMMENDATION
For mothers, for fans of post-apocalyptic (but not dystopian!) novels, for those who want something different! This novel has a lot to offer, and I think it's worth at least a look.

 After the Flood is slated to come out September Third of this year, so keep an eye out for it!

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