This was a dystopian story that for me managed the right balance between beautiful and bleak, in the same way as the wonderfully written Station Eleven by Emily St John Mandel.

It’s the story of an ark – a huge ship built to preserve some of humanity from a futuristic world of privation, anarchy and death. Emphasis on 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦, and that’s where the moral drama lies. The story is told from the point of view of the daughter of the ‘Noah’ character, who becomes an increasingly critical voice, worrying what will happen to the world they have left behind, whether it was justified to leave, and what will happen in the future when the bounty of the ship starts to run out.

This is a book that has elements of fable but at the end of the day feels very real. The protagonist is a believable 17 year old, finding out who she is at the same time as dealing with loss and uncertainty. The other passengers are drawn like tiny detailed portraits – we see only a little of them, but a lot of humanity is revealed in one glance. The themes of the book are built on and built on as the stakes get higher towards the end, there is wonderful ocean imagery – and the ending… was the only one possible.

Recommend for anyone who wants a smidge of fable woven into a sadly believable reality.