Not a Drop to Drink by Mindy McGinnis

Not a Drop to Drink
By Mindy McGinnis

Genre: Young Adult, Post Apocalyptic

Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins

Goodreads Summary:

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…

With evocative, spare language and incredible danger, and romance, debut author Mindy McGinnis depicts one girl’s journey in a barren world not so different than our own.

Links:

Not a Drop to Drink on Goodreads, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble

Mindy McGinnis’ website

My Thoughts:

I love apocalypse type survival stories because it’s all about pushing characters to their limit. It’s about forcing them to adapt and forcing them to do things that no one would normally do and then seeing how those acts change them. Do they become cold and unfeeling? Do they lose some of their morality?

One downfall of this is that it sometimes makes it harder to feel for the character which was the case with Not a Drop to Drink. They either choose to be or are forced to be emotionally ‘distant’ and in turn I, as a reader, am not as affected by certain events. I came across the same thing when I read Susan Beth Pfeffer’s Last Survivor Series. You watch the events more than partake in them. Perhaps that’s the intent…for the reader to remain an outsider looking in to a certain degree?

Aside from being the outsider looking in I did really like Not a Drop to Drink, it’s a great addition to my growing post-apocalyptic collection. It makes you think about how you would react if you were in the same situations…and it may make you want to move next to a lake or pond. Just in case.

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5