brf1948
I received a free electronic ARC copy of this novel on October 5, 2019, from Netgalley, Maja Lunde, and Scribner UK. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me. I have read this novel of my own volition, and this review reflects my honest opinion of this work. I am pleased to recommend The End of the Ocean to friends and family. This is a novel that speaks well for the hearts call of family and the importance of cleaning up our act on our earth. It is a story for our time, and that to come. Let it not be a prophecy. The End of the Ocean is set out in two timelines, two distinct stories that eventually intertwine. This is handled most effectively - seamlessly - by Maja Lunde. We have the story of Singe Hauger, born and raised in Ringfjorden, Sogn og Fjordane, Norway but a citizen of the world, a journalist, author, and professional activist. One of the few of her generation to leave their small village in Norway, Singe has lived in the wider world these last 50 years. In 2019 at 70 years old, she crosses the wide ocean to return home in her boat. Blue was an 18th-year birthday gift from her mother, though they shared little else physically or emotionally. Blue was, for Singe, a perfect match. Together they have traveled the world, touching nature all around. Blue is both sail and diesel, small enough for her to handle on her own, big enough for her to live comfortably aboard, making a very small footprint on the earth. Allowing Singe the mobility necessary to fight her battles with the polluters of this world. Singe had returned home occasionally. For the funerals of first her mother, then her father, to clean up after their deaths and grieve the compulsory five days. Now she is seeking closure with the love of her life. Magnus is at the heart of this desecration of her place in Norway. Advocating for the earth and its critters are her vocation, her life, her heart song. There is no way to work past this defilement of the earth. This is the ultimate betrayal. For the news from home is crushing - Those in power have sold Blafonna, the iceberg on the mountain, ice being harvested and shipped to the wealthy southern European nations firmly in the grip of the drought - so they might have ice in their cocktails. And the community has plans to harness the River Breio - trap the flow on the mountain and send it by pipeline, bypassing the River, and the Sisters, famous local waterfalls. They need to control the flow to run a massive generator and create power for the mining of aluminum ore on the mountain. Aluminum necessary only for the seemingly eternal war in the Middle East. It will be the death of the villages on that river, Eidesdalen, and Ringfjorden. Fed by the mountain rains and the slowly melting glacier composed of ice a thousand years old, the River Breio, Lake Eide and Sister Falls are the heart of Norway and home. There may be one more battle of environmental advocacy left in the old girl. And we view life in 2041 through the eyes of David, who with his 6-year-old daughter Lou is a refugee in search of a home - and the other half of his family, wife Anna and young son August who due to circumstance were not able to leave Argeles, France with David and Lou. The world drought has Europe firmly in its clutches, and as David and Lou move from one refugee camp to another seeking the rest of their family and a country willing to take them in, they see the system of refuge breaking down in camp after camp, leaving these footsore travelers without water or medicine or food, and the camps themselves becoming armed headquarters for the lawless. Even the Red Cross has given up control of the refugee camps. And then David and Lou find Singe's boat Blue, carefully wrapped against the weather, and waiting. But where will they go from here? How do you run from an endless worldwide drought? Where do you run when the world implodes around you? Where do you go to in a world without water?
