Friday, July 11, 2014

Review of In a Handful of Dust by Mindy McGinnis

Advance Review of Mindy McGinnis' In a Handful of Dust
Release Date: September 23rd, 2014

Synopsis as found on GoodReads.com:

Lucy’s life by the pond has always been full. She has water and friends, laughter and the love of her adoptive mother, Lynn, who has made sure that Lucy’s childhood was very different from her own. Yet it seems Lucy’s future is settled already—a house, a man, children, and a water source—and anything beyond their life by the pond is beyond reach.

When disease burns through their community, the once life-saving water of the pond might be the source of what’s killing them now. Rumors of desalinization plants in California have lingered in Lynn’s mind, and the prospect of a “normal” life for Lucy sets the two of them on an epic journey west to face new dangers: hunger, mountains, deserts, betrayal, and the perils of a world so vast that Lucy fears she could be lost forever, only to disappear in a handful of dust.

In this companion to Not a Drop to Drink, Mindy McGinnis thrillingly combines the heart-swelling hope of a journey, the challenges of establishing your own place in the world, and the gripping physical danger of nature in a futuristic frontier.


Synopsis from Amazon.com:

Fans of classic frontier survival stories as well as readers of dystopian literature will enjoy this futuristic story about an epic cross-country journey. In a Handful of Dust is set ten years after the first novel, Not a Drop to Drink, as a dangerous disease strikes the community where teenage Lucy lives. When her adoptive mother, Lynn, takes Lucy away from their home and friends in order to protect her, Lucy struggles to figure out what home means. During their journey west to find a new life, the two face nature's challenges, including hunger, mountains, and deserts.

New York Times bestselling author Michael Grant says Not a Drop to Drink is a debut "not to be missed," and this companion title is full of Mindy McGinnis's evocative, spare language matched with incredible drama and danger. In a Handful of Dust is perfect for fans of Partials, Enclave, and Legend.

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In this 10 years later sequel to Not a Drop to Drink, we are again taken to Lynn & Lucy's world of disease, famine, and a frontier lifestyle evocative of early American settlers. In the first book, we learned that there was little water left on Earth and a lot of it was tainted by disease. In the sequel, we find the women at home in their little world around Lynn's pond where many families have settled nearby.

From the start, we know this is going to be a different tale told when one of Lucy's friends (whom she grew up with in the past 10 years) was dying from a Polio outbreak. Things that may have been taken for granted in the world before are every day occurrences in this new world.

When Lucy & the boy she is falling in love with, Carter, are accused of being the reason that the outbreak has occurred, they are sent away, no longer able to live among the people they grew up with. While Carter is all alone, Lynn offers to leave with Lucy... setting off from their little pond in Ohio, for the stories of a Desalinization plant in California. This begins their new story...

What will become of Lynn & Lucy?

Will Lucy ever see Carter again?

Find out, this September 24th. In a Handful of Dust!

"And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust." - TS Eliot

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