Water. Vital ingredient of life. So vital that when we’ve used or poisoned the earth’s water to the point of near depletion, countries are ready to fight tooth and nail to get their share. Vera’s led a dry and dusty life, with never enough to drink in a land that sucks the moisture right out of you. Then she meets Kai, who acts as if water is as common as anything, and as their friendship grows, Vera soon realizes that Kai knows more than he’s telling her. Then one day, Kai’s late to the bus stop and Vera’s choices will lead her and her brother on a dangerous chase into plots and places she never imagined she’d see.

It sounds really exciting, right? Maybe my hopes were too high. There’s adventure, all right, and a lot of violence — but almost too many near-misses. Too many crashes and disasters that the completely innocent and untrained Vera somehow survives. Relationships develop too quickly. Several times the plot just skipped — skipped vital details that left me searching the pages for missing information and that felt like major editing errors. It drove me crazy. Last gripe: it was totally didactic. So many times all of our current environmental wickedness was shoved into our faces.

And too bad, because it’s a great idea for a story. It was just poorly told.

Rated: Mild for some pretty violent images, but otherwise, no language or sex to speak of.