REVIEW: Thirst by Benjamin Warner

 2/5 stars

Thirst is a novel that dries up just as things start flowing (*ba-dum-CHING*). 

In Benjamin Warner’s Thirst, Eddie and his wife find themselves in a world where suddenly the water supply is no more. Ed is driving home from work when a traffic jam forces him to get out and jog home. When he passes the usual streams and waterways, he realizes they are dry and full of ash. This unexplained catastrophe reminded me a lot of the situation in The Road, but with extreme heat instead of cold. Power outages are fairly common, but loss of water for any extended period of time is something most of us aren’t prepared for. Even so, the scenarios felt all too likely and I could feel the thirst and desperation of the characters. I reached for my bedside water bottle more than once while I read.

Further on in Warner’s debut novel, characters started making one bad decision after another. I would hope that real-life communities would fare better than Ed’s, where everything fell apart rather quickly. I was frustrated with a lot of the conflicts in the book that seemed entirely avoidable, but I can deal with that frustration because it kept me interested. What really lost my interest was when things got weird once you couldn’t tell whether Ed’s narration was real or hallucination. He obviously starts going crazy due to the circumstances, but it made the reading far less enjoyable after that and I didn’t like the ending of the book.

The first half of Thirst was full of suspense. It made me reevaluate my survival plan and consider my neighborly relationships (i.e. what they would do for me and vice versa in desperate times). To be honest, between this book, The Walking Dead, and other apocalyptic narratives, I’m getting pretty paranoid and I might start building my underground shelter soon. But I won’t be taking any doomsday pointers from characters in this book.

Release Date: April 12 (Bloomsbury USA)