I'd like to take this quick moment to thank HarperCollins for the chance to be on the tour for TRASHLANDS. I loved everything about this book. But before I get to the review, let's meet the author.
Alison Stine is an award-winning poet and author. Recipient of an Individual Artist Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), and an Ohio Arts Council grant, she was a Wallace Stegner Fellow and received the Studs Terkel Award for Media and Journalism. She works as a freelance reporter with The New York Times, writes for The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The Guardian, 100 Days in Appalachia, ELLE, The Kenyon Review, and others, and has been a storyteller on The Moth. After living in Appalachian Ohio for many years, she now lives and writes in Colorado with her partner, her son, and a small orange cat.
Twitter: @AlisonStine
Instagram: @alistinewrites
TRASHLANDS
Author: Alison Stine
Genre: Adult dystopian
Publication Date: October 26, 2021
Publisher: MIRA Books
A resonant, visionary novel about the power of art and the sacrifices we are willing to make for the ones we love
A few generations from now, the coastlines of the continent have been redrawn by floods and tides. Global powers have agreed to not produce any new plastics, and what is left has become valuable: garbage is currency.
In the region-wide junkyard that Appalachia has become, Coral is a “plucker,” pulling plastic from the rivers and woods. She’s stuck in Trashlands, a dump named for the strip club at its edge, where the local women dance for an endless loop of strangers and the club's violent owner rules as unofficial mayor.
Amid the polluted landscape, Coral works desperately to save up enough to rescue her child from the recycling factories, where he is forced to work. In her stolen free hours, she does something that seems impossible in this place: Coral makes art.
When a reporter from a struggling city on the coast arrives in Trashlands, Coral is presented with an opportunity to change her life. But is it possible to choose a future for herself?
Told in shifting perspectives, Trashlands is a beautifully drawn and wildly imaginative tale of a parent's journey, a story of community and humanity in a changed world.
Personal rating: If I were in a dystopian world, I'd probably trust Coral with my life.
Reasons to read: if you're looking for a thought-provoking, emotionally driven book that pulls out the beauty and love in the world from literal garbage
So, I've always been a fan of dystopian books, mainly YA because they're not afraid to give us stories about youth and hope climbing from the fire of a ruined world. My favorites will always be The Hunger Games, Delirium, and City of Ember. In the adult genre, I love The Handmaid's Tale, Station Eleven, and The Stand, but Trashlands is the first book I have read where it takes the idea of a flooded world but dives deep into the lives of those scraping to survive. To say this is an uncomfortable book would be correct because it does get into the very true idea that women are in the most dangerous positions when law and order have been eradicated and the only way to survive would be to strip or sell sex to gain protection and money to survive. In Trashlands, plastic is the new currency, and children are stolen from their families and brought to factories to work/
[Mr. Fall said there used to be a color called Dayglo that would burn so brightly it hurt your eyes. Coral didn't understand how a color could just disappear. But whole cities could disappear. Coasts could disappear. Trees and flowers and animals.]
Coral lives as a "plucker", one who pulls plastic from rivers. She lives in what used to be the area of Appalachia. She'd gotten pregnant by someone who left soon after and eventually loses her son to collectors who come around to take children to work in plastic factories. Coral is told the children are well fed and safe, but she lives each day thinking of ways to find him. On the edge of the junkyard is a strip club known for miles around. it is owned by a man called Rattlesnake Master who is Trashland's unofficial mayor. Summer and Foxglove are two of his employees.
[She thought of plastic as time traveling. She knew that most people viewed it as money. But to Foxglove, plastic told a story. If only it could talk. What would it tell her? What had the world been like? What had the plastic in her water been-a toy or a shoe? Mr. Fall said that most plastics had been packaging. What a world that must have been, to have had to protect everything.]
One day, a reporter arrives with the task of finding something he'd lost. He also gives the people of Trashlands the vague idea that he's there to do a story of them. He enlists the help of Coral to help him look through the junkyard of scrap metal and old cars. He tells them all about his life in the big city. He's unlike the other men that come to Trahslands to watch the dancers, but he takes an interest in Coral.
[The song of the child forced to grow up too soon. The song of the teacher who alters his whole life to save a stranger. The song of the mother who sacrifices for her son. And the song of this stranger, this outsider, forever changed.]
The dystopian setting is a scary backdrop to the stories of the main three women: Coral, Summer, and Foxglove. But what I LOVED was that they surrounded themselves with decent men. (not you, Rattlesnake Master, although he was far gentler than I imagined he would be). There's a camaraderie within their group, and they all do what they have to do to survive.
This is not an action-packed adventure story; it's a mesmerizing piece of art. It hit all the beats for me: strong female characters, a bleak world, hope that crawls from the trash of grief and trauma.
Trigger warnings: violence, stillbirth, kidnapping, sexual coercion.
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