This is propaganda.
Which is weird to say because I support the message but this layed it on so thick and optimistic that it just goes too far. It’s definitely propaganda that isn’t going to sway anyone to the message that doesn’t already agree with it.
It might even make extremist more extreme when they clearly see propaganda being unashamedly so.
Me and my husband actually read this at the same time and when discussing this through text we both sent the same text at the same time when sharing our opinion on it calling it propaganda. I’m totally supportive of the cause with climate change but this book isn’t going to help.
The book overall though is fairly good for the first half. The biggest issue though is the first event starts off right away with a heat wave in India and writing that is descriptive and disturbing. So when it starts at a level 10 it really has nowhere else to go but down. It never quite reaches that level 10 moment again and remains fairly textbook feeling and stagnant.
There is also a LOT of telling instead of showing. For example you’ll see phrases similar to ‘this country did this’… When I really would have loved to experience what this was like instead of just a brief telling of what was done. Sorta takes the energy out of the event and makes it feel like a textbook with its delivery.
What makes this propaganda the most though is the series of plot points that are just too perfect. Messages such as ‘this country needs to do this’, ‘we all need to work together’, ‘this is our only planet’, ‘reduce emissions for a better environment’, ‘the world needs to implement this’, etc. Etc.
It feels like nearly everything proposed gets adopted and then magically the world is better. And magically the world just accepts it smoothly and any proposal seems to nearly always work and everyone benefits from it.
This is not entertaining.
I feel like I’m getting spoon fed these perfect world messages and it’s exhausting.
Its also misleading.
Making extreme sacrifices that need to be made to save the environment will not be pretty. People die, jobs will be lost, starvation will happen, industries and economies will collapse. This is reality. Its something I acknowledge but still support as in the long run it will be better overall but unfortunately what we have is not sustainable.
If this book had more messages showing the reality of these sacrifices I think would have been more entertaining as it would show tension, better plot devices and more interesting characters and dealt a better message that it won’t be pretty but it’s a sacrifice we will eventually have to make. Seeing these struggles to survive in a world that has to make all these extreme changes would have been grimly entertaining as some of the extremes would not go well. If I suddenly had to survive in a world without gas, I’d struggle very much trying to afford an electric car, a lot of people would, this is relatable. This book is not relatable because it doesn’t show those stories.
When it’s delivered in the way this book did, it’s just off putting to those that dont agree and not at all helping when anyone can tell it’s a propaganda piece. For those that do agree with some of these messages it’s also off putting as it’s not set in reality and not entertaining, it’s seen as propaganda to both sides and that is not good.