An ode to the ferocious power of motherhood, even in the face of Earth’s utter devastation. Part dire warning, part love song, Not Alone explores how, like a tree bending toward sunlight, life may endure if our worst climate nightmares become reality. Haunting, endearing, and captivating.” I also appreciated that the book didn't get too preachy. There's a tendency for these types of books to get a little heavy handed in their message, but with the exception of Katie lamenting a few times "If we all only went vegan!", the author simply lets her story unfold.

This felt so very claustrophobic, and while I can’t say I had a ‘good’ time with this, I did find it a powerful read. One I keep thinking about long after I’ve finished reading, and one I’d for sure recommend to readers of Dystopian and Post-Apocalyptic fiction. Beware the bleak contents, then lose yourself to this hopeless world. Not Alone] is driven by the debut author’s passionate concern for the environment. . . a stark depiction of how difficult it is for one person to raise a child alone, without support. With hauntingly beautiful descriptions of the natural world, this challenging novel is tough and memorable.” I specialise in botany and habitats as an ecologist, so my love of plants, their uses, their ability or not to thrive or adapt, and all those experiences outdoors amongst trees and hedges and rivers definitely fed into Katie’s journey and the world she inhabits. It’s an altered, toxic world, but it is still beautiful.Dust and mould cake the walls of the stairwell, crumbs of mud and dead vegetation littering the stairs. Particles drift in the air, blinking in and out of the muted light. The book’s horror hinges on the fact that with few women left in the world many men are rapists. And hey, I’ve read my fair share of feminist revenge stories, but the number of times this book attempts to drive that point home it just became one dimensional in nature.

Outside their safe haven, Katie and Harry encounter a world that is forever changed. There are new threats to their safety here, fellow survivors who are determined to start a new population, to save the world they so desperately misunderstood. Katie is pushed to unimaginable lengths as she pushes ahead in search of a better life and as Harry's safety wavers in the balance. As they travel further north, leaving their once safe haven so far behind them, Katie knows how much harder it will be to return if things go wrong. Other reviewers have mentioned that the MC, Katie, wasn't likeable. She wasn't a saint, and in a dog-eat-dog world, this seemed realistic. As the reader, you could see that she tried her best to raise her child with absolutely zero help or resources, so it seemed appropriate that she'd be bitter and callous at times. They started to find plastic dust in rivers, soils and even the air – and also in the vast oceans, millions of pieces per square metre, washed there like it was a great big watery garbage dump. All containing their own chemicals (poisons).” Accept that writing and creating will likely always be squeezed in amongst other parts of your life, and try to be grateful for the time you have. A focused hour can be more useful than an unstructured day. This story of a mother and child surviving in post apocalypse had an excellent premise. A microplastic storm has devastated the world and the microplastics are irretrievably on/in every surface and water supply forever. It was on the whole well written in particular the trauma post rape. There it stops though. To me the characters were challenging to care about. The child has to be the whiniest scared and poorly behaved kid in literature. The mother makes some very unbelievable decisions. Would any mother, having found a caring couple to carry on living with, decide to make a life threatening journey to scotland in the faint hope that the man she loves is still alive and she can find him. Or that she would not teach her child anything about how to survive in the new world apart from mask wearing and hand washing. I really find it beyond belief that a landcruiser smashed into barricades, houses and regularly submerged and filled with old polluted fuel could make it past the M25.Many of our students find a real community on our courses – are you still in touch with any of your course mates? In Hitchin, some years after the storm, Katie lives in her flat with her four-year old son Harry. The windows are gaffer-taped, and the air-vent's covered with a filter. She only goes out foraging when the wind is low, and always with a face-mask handy and a particle meter. Not Alone kept me breathless with tension. An outstandingly credible and gripping adventure story, rooted in a deep understanding of both ecology and family.' - Emma Donoghue, bestselling author of Room