If you’re looking for a SF story about the future and being overrun with the trash of our consumerism, then Trashlands is it. Of family units, of schools, and language. If you’re uncomfortable with that, know you can look up the book on any of the sites below to avoid the link)īecause the world of Trashlands has completely changed how they think of dreams and futures. For more information you can look at the Policy page. (Disclaimer: Some of the links below are affiliate links. There’s a very real sense of frustration, of desperation, but at the same time there’s glimpses of love, of new connections, and dreams. At the same time, Trashlands balances a bleak portrayal of the future with one of movement and hope. And then I couldn’t put Trashlands down until I was finished. The moment these fragments of life, hints to the shrouded past, became clear. When all these pieces Stine established, suddenly bloomed and began connecting. I think it was the moment that the action exploded like a firework. For me, I was enjoying the world building and slow character development, and then all of a sudden I could not put Trashlands down. How there has been waves of immense change, of reaping our mistakes, but even then there’s this desire to create, to form families, and to find hope. Trashlands details a world so unlike the one I’m familiar with, and yet in some ways so similar. Trashlands is atmospheric and detailed, transporting you to a world of scarcity. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.) (Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. But is it possible to choose a future for herself? Review When a reporter from a struggling city on the coast arrives in Trashlands, Coral is presented with an opportunity to change her life. In her stolen free hours, she does something that seems impossible in this place: Coral makes art. She’s stuck in Trashlands, a dump named for the strip club at its edge, where the local women dance for an endless loop of strangers and the club’s violent owner rules as unofficial mayor.Īmid the polluted landscape, Coral works desperately to save up enough to rescue her child from the recycling factories, where he is forced to work. In the region-wide junkyard that Appalachia has become, Coral is a “plucker,” pulling plastic from the rivers and woods.

Global powers have agreed to not produce any new plastics, and what is left has become valuable: garbage is currency. SummaryĪ few generations from now, the coastlines of the continent have been redrawn by floods and tides. Keep reading this book review for my full thoughts. While this one is also a futuristic SF world, Trashlands dives deeply into character dynamics. As a fan of Road Out of Winter, when the publisher asked if I wanted to read Stine’s latest, it was an easy yes.

Trashlands by Alison Stine