Author: Maia Sepp
Publisher: Maia Sepp through Draft 2 Digital
Rating: WORTHY!
DISCLOSURE: Unlike the majority of reviews in this blog, I've neither bought this book nor borrowed it from the library. This is a "galley" copy ebook, supplied by Net Galley. I'm not receiving (nor will I expect to receive or accept) remuneration for this review.
This is a charming, witty, and engaging novella. Seriously, how can you not like a story with a title like that? (Note in passing that - according to wikipedia - a novel is something using over 40,000 words, a novella uses 17,500 to 40,000, a novelette 7,500 to 17,500, and a short story under 7,500). This one has 82 pages, but page one is the cover and there is some advertising in the back, meaning that the actual story occupies only 77 pages or so.
It's set in Canada at a point in the future where even the morons who claim global warming is fiction can no longer deny it. It begins with Olive O'Malley baking under the sun in the front yard with her neighbor and enjoying some fresh water - with ice no less - when some woman, obviously a member of The Core, visits asking if she would be interested in migrating her etiquette blog to radio. Olive is disinclined to acquiesce to her request, so to say, and the woman departs, whereupon Olive discovers that the Internet has finally failed. It's yet another step in the obsolescence of technology in a disintegrating world.
Of what use is her blog if she can't blog? Why didn't the Core woman tell her that the Internet was finally going down? Judged by the veiled threats she got, and gets again from another member of the Core, Olive isn't going to be granted much choice about joining them, but her priority is recovering her grandfather, Fred. Even though she had a thorny relationship with him, he's important to her and she misses him and agonizes over his fate; then comes a risky opportunity for Olive to turn things around, to side-step the Core, bring Fred home, and garner for herself a little bit of self-determination. But what is the real cost of this going to be?
I liked this story very much, although it felt a bit too short and left things a bit loose at the end. That's not always a bad thing and I'd rather have that, than have a novel which doesn't know when to say goodnight and leave. I loved the easy relationship Olive had with her neighbor - a woman with whom a relationship would probably never have developed had it not been for the impoverished and rationed circumstances under which they're both now forced to live. I could stand to read a lot more about these two.
A remarkable story, an easy read, and an engaging tale. Some YA writers could stand to learn a bit about how women should be portrayed from reading Maia Sepp's writing. I recommend this novella unreservedly.
