If Mother Earth could speak, what would she tell us humans? Would she be angry at the destruction we have caused and the way we live? Rise of Gaia by Kristin Ward is a book that explores this idea. I had the opportunity to read this book as part of The WriteReads’ blog tour that is underway this week. My peers really liked this book while I had some inhibitions with it. I apologize that there are spoilers in this review. Read on to learn more!
Beneath rock and soil, trees and oceans, she lies.
Under concrete jungles and poisoned rivers, she slumbers.
She is Mother Earth.
And mankind has turned its back on its mother.
The visions begin on Terran’s seventeenth birthday. Horrifying images pummel her brain, while a voice commands her to see beyond the world she thought she knew and into the heart of it. Gaia has awakened, brought to consciousness by the greed of a species that has tainted every aspect of her being in a tide of indifference. With this awareness, comes rage. Gaia calls upon her children to unleash her fury, wreaking vengeance on humanity.
Terran will emerge in a world on the brink of collapse, to face a being whose wrath is beyond imagining.
Content notes: Depictions of death, not in extreme details.
Why I chose to read Rise of Gaia
Environment and climate change form an important part of public discussion nowadays. When I first heard about this, I was fascinated by the idea of personifying Mother Earth. I wanted to know how a book like this would make people more aware about the effects of climate change.
Themes for Thought
Terran is a seventeen year old who is having visions. Earlier in the story, we find that she was adopted as a baby and does not know who her birth parents are. When she starts to get visions of a dying earth, she takes help from her best friend, Beth and her mom, Celeste. Celeste experiments with tarot cards, palm-reading, among other spiritual arts, and gets Terran connected with a medium. From there, Terran slowly begins to understand what Mother Earth, or Gaia, is trying to communicate with her. She learns that she is THE conduit for Gaia’s power and when Gaia takes over, Terran doesn’t have much control after all. Around the same time, a handsome young man, Raife, also walks into Terran’s life and apparently, he can feel that connection too.
Though I was excited from the synopsis and my peers’ enthusiasm for this book, my recent bad experiences with reading young adult novels as well as perceptions about bringing up awareness about important topics probably led this book to not be a fantastic read for me.
On Fantastical Elements
I love reading fantasy but sometimes, fantasy ruins the plot line for me. That is because it takes us away from the present, the world that we live in, and introduces this magical out-of-our-hands entity that we will likely never see in our world. I had this problem with Book of M and I have the same problem here.
A seventeen year old girl has this deep connection with Gaia and has powers to manipulate the surface of the Earth, whether it is land or water sounds amazing. But to what avail? For her to do Gaia’s bidding and cause the destruction? I thought the idea was to bring awareness about taking care of the environment but no one talked to anyone! Terran couldn’t even bring herself to tell Beth (her best friend) about Gaia.
On Destiny you didn’t as for
Terran never wanted this connection with Gaia and though it gave her powers, it ultimately left her with a lot of guilt. Causing natural disasters and killing billions of people – what effect does that have on a young person? That’s one of my biggest concerns with this story.
On Friendship
A best part of the storyline was the friendship that Beth and Terran shared. They have been together since kids and Beth provides all the support that she can when Terran’s visions start. However, like a typical teenager (with some added restrictions on what she can say now that Gaia is in her), Terran starts to neglect Beth and spends more and more time with Raife, learning about her powers.
Having finished the book, I know now that this friendship was what Kristin was really getting at – that when we start with the people we know and together build a community that cares.
On Change
There is research out there that says that climate change causes more natural disasters. But rather than spreading awareness, if multiple natural disasters just happened, would that make people change their ways? Would everyone make the connection that the disasters are linked to climate change and hence, everyone on the planet should start paying more attention?
The younger generation has more awareness and does not deny climate change. We have people like Greta Thunberg actively spreading more knowledge. There are still people who do no acknowledge climate change and these same people will never make the connection between disasters and our own actions. Would an angry Gaia really succeed in saving herself by being aggressive?
Rise of Gaia, as fascinating as its premise is, was a very slow paced story for me. Kristin had a vivid imagination and describes almost everything in detail. Personally, I find descriptive writing harder to read because my mind spends a lot of time building the right picture that the author is describing. For some books I don’t mind that and fantasy obviously needs good imagery, however, when a story is set in this world, the details do not help me get more engaged with a story. But that is just me.
**Rise of Gaia is available in stores. **
Amazon Print
Amazon Kindle
(available on Kindle Unlimited)
A number of my peers on this blog tour really liked this book and I highly recommend checking out their posts! Come back tomorrow to learn more from Kristin Ward herself about her book.
Cover image: Photo by Matthew Smith on Unsplash
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