All Things Rise

In this clumsy debut, set in a devastated and stratified future, the wealthiest live in cloud cities, the poor scrounge for resources on the ground, and everyone is strangely unconcerned about repopulating the world. Airship pilot Ava, literally flying away from awkward sexual tension with doctor Audrey, crashes her airship and is saved by boyish, delightful Cole, who welcomes Ava into her lesbian aunts’ home for real, unsynthesized food and surprising human warmth. Then a hungry marauder stabs Cole, forcing Ava to fly her to the cloud city of Easton for emergency medical care (provided by Audrey) and recovery in the midst of Ava’s gossipy and all-women social environment. When Cole and Audrey fall suddenly and deeply in love, they must navigate the awkwardness with Ava while deciding whether their relationship can survive their class differences. A subplot about revolution makes little sense, and though the book aims for emotional intensity, it fails to provide believable tension in either the individual social interactions or in the greater social conflicts between groundlings and city dwellers. Vaun wastes the potential of her postapocalyptic setting with a bland story of love at first sight. (June)