Review #1: As the Waters Rise by Susan Greenberg Feltman follows Police Commissioner Manny Stewart as he juggles his son Zach’s turbulent adolescence, the pressures of policing New York’s crumbling underground Colony, and the unfinished business of his own violent past. At home, Manny faces escalating defiance from Zach—secret padlets, late-night drinking, even stealing his father’s service weapon—while his wife Marya withdraws and their marriage becomes increasingly fragile. Manny responds with a volatile mix of discipline, fear, and reluctant tenderness, desperate to keep Zach from being swallowed up by gangs like the Skulls or manipulated by the powerful Perez-Gopalaswami families. At work, Manny supervises shelter construction in a half-ruined above-ground Central Park, manages corruption probes, and evades investigators who circle old crimes. When Zach is physically trapped in a collapsing subway car, Manny must confront his own limits as both commissioner and father.
As the Waters Rise by Susan Greenberg Feltman is a daring vision of a fractured, underground New York that grows in ways that were completely unexpected for me. The setup is thorough, and Feltman builds an exceptional, fully fleshed-out world, transitioning into latter chapters that strike with particular force, mixing underground unrest, family volatility, and bold steps toward reclaiming the surface. There are some fantastic subplots, with Loosey’s standing out as the strongest, and a townhouse that has an unexpected backstory and brilliant texture. The writing is tight, and while Feltman’s style is simple and straightforward, in moments of intense pressure, it explodes spectacularly alongside the eruption of violence, with an undeniable charge that keeps the reader fully invested. Feltman has created an unsettlingly authentic future in a story that commands attention through its scope and imagination. Readers who enjoyed the likes of DuPrau’s The City of Ember and Howey’s Wool series will find much to love here. Very highly recommended.
Review #2: As the Waters Rise by Susan Greenberg Feltman is a fascinating and deeply disturbing story happening in 2375. Three hundred years after a devastating hurricane forced 6500 New Yorkers underground into the subway tunnels, no one believes it is safe to live above ground anymore. However, it’s not safe underground either because the accelerating climate change is slowly encroaching on their lives. The ground is shifting around the tunnels, and frequent flooding forces residents into more and more difficult repairs. Manny Stewart, Police Commissioner of the settlement, wants to build evacuation shelters above ground to provide residents with temporary relief in case of a bigger disaster, which he is sure is going to happen, but nobody takes him seriously. Above ground? Impossible! However, the main story is a family drama as he struggles with his turbulent past and his volatile present relationships with his son and his wife.
The story is extremely well written, psychologically sound, and a completely believable struggle of a father who is trying to protect his teenage son from bad company and poor decisions. The pacing is excellent, starting slowly but gradually accelerating into a spellbinding drama, keeping the reader on the edge of their seat. The characters are very well drawn, familiar, and credible; their relationships sounded convincing and alarming to me, as I was getting more and more involved with their struggles and desperate attempts at finding solutions to their seemingly unsolvable problems. The descriptions are vivid, easily followed by the reader, and the futuristic, dystopian environment of a community living underground is depicted with convincing details. It is one of those rare novels that successfully combine riveting storytelling with relevant social commentary that easily applies to our era. I very highly recommend As the Waters Rise by Susan Greenberg Feltman to readers who crave thought-provoking literature.
Susan Greenberg Feltman 