We Are Unprepared is a novel about the next big storm, the one that changes our relationship to nature and each other...the superstorm that threatens to destroy a marriage, a rural Vermont town and the Eastern Seaboard when it hits. But the destruction begins months earlier, when fear infects people's lives and spreads like a plague.
Ash and Pia’s move from Brooklyn to the bucolic hills of Vermont was supposed to be a fresh start—a picturesque farmhouse, mindful lifestyle, maybe even children. But just three months in, news breaks of a devastating superstorm expected in the coming months. Fear of the impending disaster divides their tight-knit rural town and exposes the chasms in Ash and Pia’s marriage. Ash seeks common ground with those who believe in working together for the common good. Pia teams up with “preppers” who want to go off the grid and war with the rest of the locals over whom to trust and how to protect themselves. Where Isole had once been a town of old farm families, yuppie transplants and beloved rednecks, they divide into paranoid preppers, religious fanatics and government tools.
We Are Unprepared is an emotional journey, a terrifying glimpse into the human, environmental and cultural costs of our changing earth. But hope awaits on the other side.
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“Reilly, a former employee of the Environmental Defense Fund and native Vermonter, does an amazing job detailing the storm and the changes to nature that come with it. Never preachy or didactic, Reilly shows the costs of ignoring major problems—whether in a marriage, government, infrastructure, or the environment—and the deadly consequences of such ignorance.”
— Booklist
“Timely and terrifying.”
— Publishers Weekly“Any book group will have lots to discuss here, for good or for ill, and readers who identify with new adult or hover on the precipice to start reading adult literary fiction would be served well.”
— Library Journal“Reilly gives us one heckuva ride… Cli-fi novels don’t get much better than this.”
— Dan Bloom, the Cli-Fi Report“Smart, prophetic, heartfelt; We Are Unprepared is just the book I’ve been waiting to read—both wake-up call and salve for these uncertain times.”
— Robin MacArthur, author of Half WildBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Meg Little Reilly is a former Treasury spokesperson under President Obama, deputy communications director for the Office of Management and Budget, communicator for the Environmental Defense Fund, and producer for Vermont Public Radio. A native of Vermont, she is an UVM graduate with deep ties around the state. She currently lives in Boston with her husband and two daughters.
Zach Villa is a stage, film, and television performer. Classically trained in acting, Villa’s audiobook work includes The World without You by Joshua Henkin and Butterfly Winter by W. P. Kinsella.