Aditi started reading The Boiling River: Adventure and Discovery in the Amazon (TED Books)

"Isn't it wild that this book feels less and less like science fiction — even climate fiction — as time progresses? That in the '90s Parable was a cautionary tale and an unlikely future, and now we're pretty much living through it.

There are so many facets of this novel that make it perfect to study: as examples of metanarrative, of climate fiction, and of religion. Lauren and her father are the most interesting of the characters, and the juxtaposition of his Biblical past and her Earthseed future is fascinating.

And there's Lauren herself — young, precocious, brilliant. I can understand her aggravating readers. I myself would have found her an irritating narrator just a few years ago. Now, though, I find her assertiveness refreshing and her firm beliefs necessary. I relate, as I suspect many of us do, to her frustration as her community turns a blind eye to the collapse of America, to the failure of safety nets, and to the destruction of the past. I relate to her need for a new narrative, a path forward, a guiding star.

This book will definitely continue to be relevant for years to come. We can only hope that eventually, when we pass this set of hurdles (climate change, poverty, drugs, collapse), we will look back on it and think, wow, thank God we escaped this future."