title: America Pacifica
author: Anna North
genre: dystopian fiction
pages: 297
published: May 18, 2011
source: ARC for review from Amazon Vine
first line: The trouble started when the woman with the shaking hands came to the apartment.
rated: 3 1/2 out of 5
I was really eager to read America Pacifica since I'm a fan of science fiction and dystopian stories, but don't often read types of books.
This book starts off with 18 year old Darcy and her mom, Sarah, living in a run down apartment type complex on an island called America Pacifica. The story takes place after the second Ice Age.
Darcy's mom was one of the first to settle on America Pacifica when everyone had to evacuate the mainland. Darcy has plenty of questions for her mom about life on the mainland, but Sarah is always vague and evasive when it comes to speaking about life before America Pacifica.
The island is run by someone named Tyson, who ensures that the rich are very well off and the poor, like Darcy and Sarah, struggle to survive.
Darcy and her mom live in the grimy, seedy part of the island. Darcy works at a building for senior citizens, serving food. Her mother works doing backbreaking labor as a pearl diver.
Darcy and her mom have awful living conditions and often go hungry. They share their bathroom with the other tenants and their building is rundown. Some of the tenants do 'solvent', a type of drug, which is similar to crack. Most of their food consists of jelly fish seasoned and flavored to resemble something else, like Salisbury steak or goat meat. The two are very close and almost live in their own little world sheltered from outsiders.
When Darcy's mother doesn't return home from her job one night, Darcy fears the worse. She goes on a search to find her mom and ends up injured, with her life endangered and discovering some secrets about the island as well as her own mother.
As she tries to get closer to the truth, Darcy meets several people, some of whom knew her mother personally. She begins to put pieces of the puzzle together.
Author Anna North vividly describes the island of America Pacifica and as I read, I really got the sense of how grimy and depressing it was. I do wish some of her descriptions were a bit more detailed, sometimes I felt lost as to what certain things were. Many objects on the island such as paper and clothing are made from something called 'Seaboard', yet this material was never fully explained, so I just assumed it was made from seaweed or sand.
Some of the descriptions in the story were very crude, especially when it came to sexual organs. I just thought I'd mention that, I do know some readers would be put off by that. It didn't bother me, it just added to the grittiness of the story.
I liked Darcy's character, and I instantly panicked when her mother didn't return from work. Once Darcy went deeper into the slums of America Pacifica, I felt for her character even more as she tried to find her mothers whereabouts.
Sarah herself makes her appearance in the first few pages of the story, so most of what the reader knows about her is through Darcy's memories and from what the other characters recall about her. As you read you really get a feel of the bond they shared.
The writing was well done and as I said, I really got a feel of this Dystopian world and its inhabitants. The characters were also well written and the plot was interesting.
I should also say, the ending is left wide open. There was really no satisfying conclusion, so I'm assuming there will be a sequel.
All in all, I enjoyed America Pacifica and can see this being the start of new series.
The night was hardening around its core. The air was cooler-sweat dried on her skin and stuck there, spit thick and itchy. The wind shifted and blew the smoke in from Detroitville. Below that was the ominous smell of the coming rain.
p.114
