The Fantastic Flying Book Club: Not A Drop To Drink by Mindy McGinnis

Not A Drop To Drink

Mindy McGinnis

320 pages

Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books

Release Date: September 24th, 2013

Rate: Enjoyed it+

"Regret was for people with nothing to defend, people who had no WATER."

Welcome to a world where water is the most precious thing on Earth. Not having drinkable water has brought some diseases extinct long time ago and one primal instinct of survival.

Not A Drop To Drink is not a sweet, dystopian story where all you need is "the power of love" to survive. This could be a manual to survive in a not so far reality. And Mindy McGinnis did an incredible job showing as a possible future, where you fight to survive and you defend what's yours, in this case a pond.

 "Do you want to die like this?" Mother had asked that night and every night since then.

Lynn's answer never changed. "No."

And Mother's response, their evening prayer. "Then you will have to kill."

It was almost breathtaking living in Lynn's skin. Her strength, determination and survival instinct is admirable and, yet, you find her that she doesn't know a lot of things from our world, our generation, where there was plenty of water. 

A kind of shocking aspect was that Lynn keeps her fears close. Her mother showed her every night what meant to die from dehydration. And it was not nice. So she keeps telling herself what she has to lose and what would happen to her, If she didn't fight or kill.

She hasn't met a world where there's not a day you need to fight to stay alive. She's only tasted the water from the pond and finds hard to believe long time ago there was another reality to the one she's living. 

What I also really liked about Lynn was her badass side, she can shoot a rifle with deadly accuracy (I wouldn't mess with her, guys!) and, yet, her naïve side. The last thing is because of her not knowing anything apart from survival skills: not love, not having a healthy relationship without suspecting they are gonna kill her and steal the water from her, etc. 

When tragedy strikes and Lynn's left alone to make her own decisions and helps a family, she learns more about the world. Stebbs, Mother and Lynn's neighbor, teaches her that there's still goodness out there and that she needs to try that. The most heartbreaking lesson for me was Neva's, showing her what's like to sacrifice herself. Eli teaches her to fall in love and Lucy shows her what a family really is for.

Mother, Lynn's mom, is the perfect example of what you could call the "before and after". When you live in a world where you need to survive and kill to stay alive is hard, but when you have seen and lived better days, it's nearly impossible to keep sane and/or sweet. And that's what Lynn's mother represents: knowing better days. At least for me. 

The plot in general is realistic, brutal and completely honest. Ms. McGinnis brings you to a cruel world where you fight or you die. However, there's place for romance, too. Don't panic, romance-lovers! Although it's not the center of the story, there's a sweet, breathtaking and pure romance in Not A Drop To Drink. 

However, one thing it's true, Mindy McGinnis was "heartless" when it came to harm her characters. But in a credible way. There's no way, they would all survive. And I'm going to stop right there, because If you want to know what really happens here, you'll need to give this story a shot.

It's a pure dystopian story and If you're in love with this genre, I totally recommend you this book. You're gonna love Lynn's world and story and although the story, at first, is a little bit slow, you won't be able to stop reading once you have started. And that's why we are giving this book a four and a half gorjuss dolls.

Enter the harsh world of Not A Drop To Drink and try to survive, Book Addicts, because this could be a bloody, unraveling and unexpected mess.

"You can't change the things you've done. It's now and the here on out you've got control of."

Danielle Campbell as Lynn

Tyler Posey as Eli

Clara Paget as Lauren

Elle Fanning as Lucy

Zooey Deschanel as Neva

Nathan Fillion as Stebbs

What do you think, Book Addicts?

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Read an interview with Mindy McGinnis
I'm a YA librarian and author, represented by Adriann Ranta of Wolf Literary. My YA debut, NOT A DROP TO DRINK, is a survival tale set in a world with limited fresh water. It will be available from Katherine Tegen / Harper Collins, September 24, 2013.

I'm an avid blogger, posting six days a week to my personal blog, Writer, Writer Pants on Fire, which features interviews with agents, established authors, and debut authors. Learn how they landed their agents, what the submission process is really like, and how it feels when you see your cover for the first time. I also do query critiques every Saturday on the Saturday Slash for those who are brave enough to volunteer.

I also contribute to the group blogs From the Write Angle, Book Pregnant, Friday the Thirteeners, The Lucky 13s, The League of Extraordinary Writers and am a member of the Class of 2k13.

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