Review: Drought by Pam Bachorz

Drought
Pam Bachorz
Hardcover, 400 pages
EgmontUSA
January 25th 2011
Amazon | GR | TBD

Ruby Prosser dreams of escaping the Congregation and the early-nineteenth century lifestyle that’s been practiced since the community was first enslaved.

She plots to escape the vicious Darwin West, his cruel Overseers, and the daily struggle to gather the life-prolonging Water that keeps the Congregants alive and gives Darwin his wealth and power. But if Ruby leaves, the Congregation will die without the secret ingredient that makes the Water special: her blood.

So she stays.

But when Ruby meets Ford, the new Overseer who seems barely older than herself, her desire for freedom is too strong. He’s sympathetic, irresistible, forbidden—and her only access to the modern world. Escape with Ford would be so simple, but can Ruby risk the terrible price, dooming the only world she’s ever known?

Review:
Drought was almost a DNF for me. It was as dry as its title implies.

It always makes me feel bad when I have to report that a book bored me to death, but I will *try* to be level headed with Drought instead of becoming a ranting bull.

First thing I have to ask is, Where the heck was the world building? I feel that Bachorz completely dropped the ball on this. Readers are thrust into isolation, along with the characters, wondering how did this situation come to be and why and where is this taking place and what is going on and why am I reading a book about nothing?

Okay, some explanation was given, but it was all muddled, unconvincing and made no sense. It’s present day, but Ruby and the Congregation are living as slaves, and she doesn’t know anything about the modern world. I can believe that. But then, it takes a turn to unexplained weirdness. She is human(???) but she is like 200 years old and doesn’t need to eat everyday to survive. Her blood is special, so she is forced to collect water from plants to mix her blood with it?! I don’t get what is happening here. What is Ruby? What are these Congregation people? Why do they exist? Why do they believe? And more importantly, why the heck would they agree to continue to drink Ruby’s blood water to live longer just to continue to live as slaves?

We are supposed to believe they do this because of their faith. They are waiting for their god, Otto, to return to them. But like I said, they all have exceptionally long lifespans and have lived hundreds of years as slaves in utterly cruel conditions. I think that Bachorz asked too much of readers to believe that their faith alone kept them from fighting for freedom. She created the only society in the universe that doesn’t believe in advancing themselves. Why?

It was heart breaking, to say the least.

There is an obvious villain, Darwin West, who is completely mad and enjoys beating the slaves and denying them food, but the real villain of the story is evident from the start, Ruby’s mother. She angered me to the point where I thought I might explode. Not only was this lady living on a prayer, and a very weak one at that, her deceit forces the rest of the Congregation  to live that way as well. She was disgusting, despicable, and ever other ‘D’ expletive I can think of. She reminded me of the grandmother from The Dollanganger Series. *shudders*

I tried to like Ruby and those few character that she cared about, I really did, but they were all so dead inside that I couldn’t connect at all. Ruby’s romance with Ford was superficial, and the one thing I kept expecting to happen, didn’t.

I’m glad I finished the book, even if it wasn’t for me. I really hope others find reasons to enjoy it. If you do, please share.

Challenge(s): 111 in ‘11 Challenge

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Posted at 7:23 pm  •  Labels: 2 stars, 2011, Book Review, Dystopian Fiction, review copy, YA