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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Apr 2016, 432 pages
Paperback:
Feb 2017, 432 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Bradley Sides
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From the critically acclaimed author of The List comes a stunning new novel about a girl who must say goodbye to everything she knows after a storm wreaks havoc on her hometown.
What if your town was sliding underwater and everyone was ordered to pack up and leave? How would you and your friends spend your last days together?
While the adults plan for the future, box up their possessions, and find new places to live, Keeley Hewitt and her friends decide to go out with a bang. There are parties in abandoned houses. Canoe races down Main Street. The goal is to make the most of every minute they still have together.
And for Keeley, that means taking one last shot at the boy she's loved forever.
There's a weird sort of bravery that comes from knowing there's nothing left to lose. You might do things you normally wouldn't. Or say things you shouldn't. The reward almost always outweighs the risk.
Almost.
It's the end of Aberdeen, but the beginning of Keeley's first love story. It just might not turn out the way she thought. Because it's not always clear what's worth fighting for and what you should let become a memory.
1
Sunday, May 8
Mostly cloudy, with steady afternoon showers, 49°F
I used to love rainy days. The coziness of hiding inside a baggy sweater. Of thick socks and galoshes. Curling up against your best friend to share her too-small umbrella. The drowsy, dreamy way a day can pass when there's not a single ray of sunshine.
That was before Aberdeen had its wettest spring ever recorded. After three weeks straight of precipitation, I was ready to blow off finals and move to the Sahara. The weather hadn't reached biblical levels. We'd had a couple of big storms, not one long and endless monsoon. Some days it just sprinkled, some days it only misted. But the air always felt damp and unseasonably chilly. I was sick of layering. Thermals under jeans, T-shirts under button-ups under hoodies, tights or leggings under dresses under cardigans. All of it thickening me like a full-body callus, while my dresser drawers were full of neatly folded spring clothes that I was dying to wear...
Vivian is a master at creating tension. Her descriptions of the destruction are powerful: “The river had poured into the first few streets, filling them up like little streams and tributaries, transforming the houses into islands. You couldn’t see any blacktop. Just water. It gave the neighborhood a creepy and surreal look. The water cut everything in half and then doubled it, like a rippling fun house mirror. Houses with two roofs, trees with trunks that sprouted two sets of leaves, cars with two tops and no tires. When the wind picked up, everything shimmered, and it reminded me of the moment right before you wake up from a dream.” It’s with these lush, descriptive passages that I found myself awed by Vivian’s ability to craft such a haunting world...continued
Full Review
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(Reviewed by Bradley Sides).
Stephen Chbosky, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Perks of Being a Wallflower
A transcendent love story, as profoundly moving as it is fun. This is Siobhan Vivian's finest hour.Siobhan Vivian's YA novel, The Last Boy and Girl in the World, tells the story of Keeley Hewitt, who is a normal teenager except for one thing: her world is falling apart. Torrential rains are causing trees to crash and houses to crumble, and adults in the community are doing everything they can to protect the place that they call home. Keeley doesn't have time to worry about all of that, though; she has dresses to buy, dances to plan for, and boys to impress. She's consumed with social media, as she constantly takes photos of herself, sends texts, and posts videos. It's not until Keely is directly faced with danger that she begins to question her priorities.
Keeley, for the first half of Vivian's novel, comes ...
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