The Water Wars Review (Spoiler-free!)

Title: The Water Wars
Author: Cameron Stracher
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Published: January 1, 2011
Genre: YA, Dystopian
Pages: 240
Source: Personal Copy

Welcome to a future where water is more precious than gold or oil-and worth killing for.

Vera and her brother, Will, live in the shadow of the Great Panic, in a country that has collapsed from environmental catastrophe. Water is hoarded by governments, rivers are dammed, and clouds are sucked from the sky. But then Vera befriends Kai, who seems to have limitless access to fresh water. When Kai suddenly disappears, Vera and Will set off on a dangerous journey in search of him-pursued by pirates, a paramilitary group, and greedy corporations. Timely and eerily familiar, acclaimed author Cameron Stracher makes a stunning YA debut that's impossible to forget.

The Water Wars follows Vera, a teen living in the Republic of Illinowa, a region decimated by lack of rain, harvesters, and people snatching every ounce of water from the sky. Inland and in trouble, class differences are vast, and Vera and her brother Will are very little more than middle class. When she meets Kai, the beautiful blonde boy with a mysterious background and every stranger wealth, she finds a friend in the midst of her bone-dry life. But Kai mentions a river, hidden and coveted, and Vera and Will are determined to find it and quench their unending thirst. This dangerous goal sends them on a perilous journey of life and death because in a world without water, every drop is worth killing for.

I’ve been cover lusting after The Water Wars for months now, and when release day came, I couldn’t wait to get my paws on this one. Cameron Stracher has created an eerie dystopian world in which water is more valuable than oil or any other natural resource. Led by a government known as the Water Authority Bureau (WAB) that is rumoured to be corrupt, what’s left of what was once America is dry and desolate with pirates searching for water, a government providing synthetic food and poisonous ocean water, and families slowly withering away. The world of The Water Wars is beautifully dark and intricate, letting the reader into a world where we’ve wasted our most precious resource until the last drop.

I’ll admit, The Water Wars got off to a bit of a rocky start for me because there was a lot that Stracher was trying to introduce to the reader. The details of the Republics and Empires of the world, as well as the technology and government overshadowed some of the initial character development because I wanted to know who the heck Kai, Vera, and Will really were. Once the scene of The Water Wars was established though, the action propels forward, spiraling darker and darker and letting us see the true colours of the characters. With just a hint of romance and a true familial bond, I was very pleased with how The Water Wars progressed.

Overall, The Water Wars was a very good read with an incredibly powerful and poignant message for the reader. A fictional book about conservation and the need to store, rather than waste, our resources, The Water Wars is great for a younger generation. I give it a 4 out of 5, and I recommend The Water Wars for a YA audience, especially those who enjoy a hint of sci-fi and dystopian stories.