Book Review - The Carbon Diaries 2015

[byslantedlight]

I should have been doing a million and one things today that I didn't, but one thing I did do was finish The Carbon Diaries 2015 by Saci Lloyd...

I'm a sucker for apocalypse-fic (child of the eighties, me... *g*), and so I was totally drawn to the premise for this book: "It's 2015 and the UK is the first nation to introduce carbon dioxide rations, in a drastic bid to cut greenhouse gas emissions". What happens is seen through the eyes of teenager Laura Brown, who is forced to cut down on mobile phone usage, the internet, and maybe even her band the dirty angels and replace them all with her... family. Of course she doesn't, though her family is all-surrounding as her world falls apart...

I really enjoyed this - even the weight of the book (Is it the paper? Is there some weird lead insert somewhere to make it feel heavier?!) added to its immediacy. 2015 is only seven years away, but Lloyd didn't try and make it seem too futuristic, and the language that Laura uses is really only an emphasis of what's going on right now. (And aaaaargh! "s'wrong"-type spelling has taken over! I so knew it would! *g*)

It may have been that I read it at a strange time - what with being in a 13-19 school at the moment - but Laura sounded totally real, and I could hear her voice if I so much as looked at the book. The world is fairly realistically portrayed as well - the authorities deal with things just as you imagine they might (that is not, really!), the neighbours are strangely real and as un/appealing as in real life, and family crises are just the same as ever too... And yet it's not depressing, it's not miserable - it's interesting, cos there's that teenage optimism that shines through even while they're listening to Leonard Cohen and applying more black eyeliner... *g*

Excellent book - well worth reading if you see it around!