Pacifica by Kristen Simmons

Pacifica by Kristen Simmons
ISBN: 9781466828803
Published by Tom Doherty Associates on March 6, 2018
Genres: Science Fiction, Young Adult
Pages: 400
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"A harrowing world. Pacifica will have you breathlessly fearing our own future."—Sara Raasch, New York Times bestselling author

Blue skies. Green grass. Clear ocean water. An island paradise like the ones that existed before the Melt.

A lucky five hundred lottery winners will be the first to go, the first to leave their polluted, dilapidated homes behind and start a new life. It sounds perfect. Like a dream.

The only problem? Marin Carey spent her childhood on those seas and knows there’s no island paradise out there. She’s corsario royalty, a pirate like her father and his father before him, and she knows a con when she sees one. So where are the First Five Hundred really going?

"A bleak, futuristic world that's utterly believable and terrifying, and yet from out of it springs the greatest of hope, carried on the back of its fierce main characters. I was swept away." —Mindee Arnett, author of Avalon

At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

Meh. Reading this took more time than I expected. These days, I can’t tell if a book is not written to the level I expect, or if I’m just not in a good headspace for reading. Overall, Pacifica wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, so that disappointment tinged some of my experience.

The Good:
Marin’s sudden dynamic shift with her mom (and dad)- it was the most real moment of the book, to me. Who hasn’t, at some point, realized that their foundational relationship with their parents was not what they’d always framed it to be?

The Pacific Gyre, Careytown, and the affect on sea life. Between Global Climate Change, Ocean Acidification, and the enormous, oft-ignored issue of our plastic waste breaking down in the ocean into smaller and smaller particles (and things getting quite toxic) so it can never be removed or recycled into anything else…I can easily see a world in which our coasts are underwater and our entire ecosystem is screwed.

The riots were described how it feels to be in one (I assume, from first-hand accounts and footage) as opposed to the more controlled perspective of watching one. Lots of chaos, having to shove your way anywhere, people falling, shouting everywhere- it really sold the concept of an angry, poor populace pushing back against the system.

The Not So Much:
The relationship between Marin and Ross felt rushed, which undermining the sense that it’s a lasting, true thing. The interactions themselves had all the right hallmarks (having to trust each other in high-stakes situations; vulnerabilities both physical and emotional), but there was no downtime to see how they related to each other when not in mortal peril.

I really wanted to see Marin and Ross grow as people, individually. Both go through major betrayal-realizations that shake the foundation of how they’ve seen the world (and their place in it) for 18 years. But we don’t get much resolution or growth past the action/adventure, and for me, the meat of a story is seeing the choices a character makes when their world has been rocked.

There were several action sequences that defied physics in an off-putting way. I tried to re-read a few of them, several times, because I thought I must’ve just misread it. But basic stuff, like “wait, I thought this character was standing, but now they’re struggling to their feet”. It made me want to skim through the action sequences (which comprise most of this book) because I struggled so much to visualize what was happening.

A secondary main character- who I thought was going to be established in their own right- was used solely as a plot device and not even given as much development, backstory, or autonomy as the villain.

Parts are pretty predictable which, again, felt like it undermined character growth.

It’s a very American-centric story. Which is fine, on the micro level, but at times it was trying to be very macro. And if you want to focus on a post-apoc dystopia of humanity’s own making, please at least acknowledge that other countries exist (especially since some will be devastated beyond reckoning by this manmade hell we’ve wrought). I really wanted it to be more thoughtful/aware with the setting and the connection between then and now.

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