Water Wars
Cameron Stracher
Sourcebooks Fire
240 pgs.

Water. We need it. There are some places that have a lot of it, but can't get to it.  And there are some places that don't have enough of it at all.  Will and Vera live in time when not just some places are experiencing a drought, but the whole world.  The water they can get has been purified in such a way that people can get sick. Their mom is sick and the Water Authority Board isn't doing anything about it.

One day Vera meets Kai and he's pouring water on the ground.  He say's he knows where there's a river flowing and everyone can have pure water.  Kai, Vera and Will become friends.  It helps that Kai brings them gallons of water for their mom.  One day Kai disappears and Vera is sure he's been kidnapped and that only she and Will can rescue him.

The Good

• all signs point to real shortages and contaminated water so the premise is great
• sometimes Vera's voice rings true
• awesome cover

The Bad

• was never convinced that Will was 17.  His actions, the time he spent with Vera, the way he spoke - those things seemed to belong to a much younger child.
• Vera was a whiny brat and she said things that I could not imagine any kid, let alone a 15-year-old, saying. "If anything happened to Will, I didn't know if I could go on."
• the dialogue was stilted

Water Wars would work better if the characters were younger.  You would expect children at the age of 15/17, who lived in world of poverty and did much on their own, to be more mature.  So the choices they made were unrealistic.  I didn't feel a strong connection to any character which also made their  choices hard to understand.  They chased Kai on bikes not knowing who could have taken him or what direction they would have gone in.  They also knew there was a curfew and about the killing pirates.  They made friends too easily and were able to get out of scrapes with barely any loss. Since I wasn't vested, I didn't care what happened.

Interview with Cameron Stracher

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