Saci Lloyd

I really appreciate the 'Carbon Diaries' series for effectively translating many non-fiction tomes about climate change into novels about a teenage girl's diary. Due to the kind of bore I am, the world-building is the reason I enjoy the series. I'm too much of a grumpy old woman to be terribly involved in the narrator Laura's band and boyfriend problems, but her interaction with current affairs is much more interesting. Her voice rings very true, particularly her ambivalence about political show more involvement and direct action. The background of economic turmoil, carbon rationing, and extreme weather is highly effective, without blocks of description being shoehorned into the narrative. I'm less convinced by the use of images within the text, for example of emails on phone screen.

I think I narrowly preferred the 2015 prequel to this novel, as the former focused more on how household life in the UK was altered by carbon rationing. In 2017 Laura goes international, which makes for a more adventurous plotline with much less about pig keeping et cetera. It was such mundane details of carbon-rationed life that I liked best. Moreover, Larkin the pig was one of my favourite characters. In short, I wish there were more novels that used climate change and carbon mitigation policies as a background. show less

The Guardian had an article about the 5 greatest books about climate change and this one was the only one I had not read. So I reserved it from the library and dug into it the past few days. While perhaps not as good as some of the other books on the list such The Road by Cormac McCarthy and The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood it was pretty decent.

Written in 2009 it postulates that by 2015 there would be catastrophic climate occurrences and that Great Britain would impose carbon show more rationing on all its populace. Laura Brown in 16 years old when the carbon rationing takes place and she starts her diary on January 1. Each citizen is given a carbon card for the year and if they use up all their carbon allowance before the end of the year they will have no electricity or food or transportation until the next year. Laura isn't a big consumer as she rides her bike or takes public transport to go to school but she misses things like fruit from the tropics and being able to download music whenever she wants. She is probably the one in her family most able to cope as her older sister, Kim, wanted to spend her gap year in New York, her mother can't figure out how to take the bus and really misses her car and her father loses his job teaching travel and tourism because no-one is going anywhere. The weather is brutal--too cold in winter and too hot and dry in summer and a devastating storm surge in the fall. Through it all Laura is trying to be a normal teenager who plays in a punk rock band and falls in love with the gorgeous boy next door.

Reading this in 2017 one can be thankful that the global climate isn't as bad as what Ms Lloyd postulates but, on the other hand, there is no evidence that people have realized how bad our energy hogging lifestyle is. Even the US President denies that climate change exists but every year examples of out of control weather patterns keep coming. Eastern Canada has just been inundated by flood waters, the Horn of Africa has experienced drought and famine for years and tornadoes and hurricanes occur earlier every year. show less

Laura Brown is not thrilled when London passes out carbon ration cards. Not only will it be that much harder to jam with her band, the Dirty Angels, but now she has to put up with her parents and sister, who are all reacting in strange ways. Her mom is distraught at needing to take the bus instead of driving; her sister (bitchy at the best of times) racks up so much carbon debt that she's enrolled in the mandatory Carbon Offenders program. Dad gets fired from his job, teaching about travel show more (because who can travel under rationing?) and ultimately ends up with a pig, which gives you some idea how stable his reaction to rationing is.

Laura's got her own things going on--besides the band, she's having issues with her schoolwork (because who can concentrate) and boys (who are jerks, sweet and beautiful jerks), and mainly the craziness that is her family. Then the climate shifts just a little bit more, and rationing ratchets up some more. It's not just carbon, but it'll be water, too, thanks to the drought. Luckily, it finally rains--but the rain doesn't stop, and the levies aren't enough to keep London from flooding.

It's one thing after another, this first year of rationing. It's hard to know if this should be called dystopian (because of the government swooping in and regulating everything, and keeping close watch on what each citizen is doing via their carbon-ration cards) or apocalyptic, because, well, the world's falling apart, and quickly.

A good choice for budding environmentalists, or those into music/punk/band scenes. Perfectly appropriate for 7th grade and up; 9th and up will get more out of it, though. show less

After a terrible natural disaster, Britain adopts a carbon rationing plan in a desperate attempt to reduce the carbon in the atmosphere and curb the effects of global warming. Severe limits are placed on travel, heating, electricity, even groceries not produced locally. Sixteen year old Londoner Laura Brown tries to navigate the new world of extreme weather and rationing, while keeping her band, the dirty angels, together, dealing with a family that seems to have gone insane, fighting with show more her sister who's getting into trouble working in the carbon black market, interacting with her crush (the boy next door) and trying to pass her exams. The story is told through Laura's diary entries, and the newspaper clippings, drawings and assignments she tapes into it. Laura has a strong teen voice, and is clearly conflicted about her new situation: she is angered by people who leave the country to escape rationing, but also envious of the freedom they experience; she wants to lead a normal life, but feels guilty about dating and having fun while the world seems to be falling apart. Laura's confusion about her new life, and her anger at the generations before that created the world she must live in are typical teen emotions that make her easy to relate to. The natural disasters Laura experiences, severe drought in the summer and flooding in the winter, are chillingly terrifying, but not unrealistic, and the book delivers a warning about the potential consequences of climate change without being overly didactic or preachy. For high school age readers. show less