Flood City by Daniel Jose Older

Welcome Back, Booklovers! I recently read my first Daniel Jose Older book and now I'm on to my second. Flood City's premise sounded interesting to me last year but I don't usually read sci-fi because I struggle with understanding the genre. But I figured since I gel with his writing style and since this is MG it would be a litter easier for me to process.

Flood City is the last city left on Earth after floods covered the planet. It's protected by the totalitarian Starguard who keep everyone fed though the food tastes like wet towels.  Meanwhile the Chemical Barons, who once ruled earth and are looking to reclaim city without it's pesky inhabitants getting in the way.

Interesting that he wrote this back in 2011 when dystopian books were all the rage and he wanted to write an adventure story with monsters and fighting. And while white stories dominated the shelves and these stories barely if at all have brown people in them Flood City is full of brown people of various shades. The barons are a group of white people who escaped to space because they knew the flood was coming.

We see Flood City through the eyes of different characters. Max was born in Flood City and can navigate it better than anyone else.  Max has music skills but is bored of the sameness of the music allowed by the Star Guard. Yala joins the Star Guard even though she doesn't agree with them and is in space trying to survive their hostile training environment made only worse by being one of the few human recruits. Ato is a baron in training who ends up in Flood City after a mission doesn't go as planned and finds himself questioning everything he's been taught.

The audiobook was narrated by his wife Brittany N Williams and her narration was so good. I've been struggling with audiobooks lately but her voice brought this story to life. This is a fast-paced and fun story that mixes sci-fi along with fantasy elements. There's cool technology and strange creatures like the iguana-gulls that can tear you apart with their beaks and cut through metal with their claws. And I don't know if this was intentional but in my mind I was picturing a dystopian style New Orleans. 

My favorite part was the daily announcement through the Flood City Gazette. It's a Star Guard published newspaper that adds some comic relief while annoying the citizens.