Dry by Neal and Jarrod Shusterman

At a Glance

Genre: Young adult thriller, cli-fi survival
Setting: Near-future Southern California during a catastrophic drought
Perspective: Rotating first-person narrators with interspersed “Snapshot” vignettes offering a wider societal view

Opening Hook

The taps cough and fall silent in suburban California, and courtesy vanishes with the water. A Costco run turns feral, a swimming pool becomes a battleground, and families splinter under the heat of need. Teenagers who never planned to be heroes—or villains—learn what thirst does to a person’s mind. As fire bears down and the world cracks, the question isn’t only who survives, but who they become to do it.

Plot Overview

Part One: The Tap-Out

On Saturday, June 4th, the faucets in Alyssa Morrow's house go dry. A collapsed water-sharing agreement has cut off the Colorado River, and the “Tap-Out” begins. A tense supply run spirals into near-riot, signaling how quickly niceties erode when thirst hits. The Morrows accept help from their prepper neighbor, Kelton McCracken, whose family bunker and protocols suddenly seem like salvation.

As the crisis escalates, neighbors flee and tempers flare, details captured in the Chapter 1-5 Summary and the “Snapshot” chapters that widen the lens to strangers like Dalton, stranded at an airport as options evaporate. On Day Three, catastrophe strikes at home: Alyssa’s little brother, Garrett Morrow, accidentally ruins their precious water with bleach. Panicked and ashamed, he runs—pushing the family into motion.

Parts Two–Four: The Search and the Alliance

Alyssa and Kelton track Garrett through a community unraveling: soldiers commandeer a high school pool, street corners sprout price-gougers, and even fish tanks are smashed for a few inches of liquid. They recover Garrett at a friend’s trashed house, then race to find Alyssa’s parents, who left for Laguna Beach after hearing FEMA would deploy mobile desalination units. The coast is chaos. As the Chapter 16-20 Summary notes, the machines have been destroyed in a riot. There’s no sign of Alyssa’s parents.

A violent encounter with Dalton ends only because of an unlikely savior: Jacqui Costa, a hard-nosed survivor who trusts no one but recognizes a fight she can win. The group reluctantly expands again with Henry, a smooth-talker who trades his uncle’s truck for water and sees the Tap-Out as a marketplace. Together they flee inland through a dysentery-ridden Dove Canyon and a lawless evacuation center. With official relief in tatters, their best shot is the McCrackens’ fortified home.

Part Five: Hell and High Water

Sanctuary turns into siege. The McCracken stockpile draws desperate neighbors, and the house is overrun. In the chaos described in the Chapter 36-40 Summary, tragedy strikes: Kelton’s father, Richard McCracken, fatally shoots his returning son Brady, mistaking him for an intruder. Alyssa, Garrett, Kelton, Jacqui, and Henry escape in Uncle Basil’s truck, aiming for the McCrackens’ hidden “bug-out” shelter in the Angeles National Forest.

They slip along dry aqueducts to dodge roadblocks, only to find the shelter looted—Brady had already drained it dry. Henry’s long game detonates: the coveted ÁguaViva box he traded to secure their escape holds only brochures. A wildfire surges. Hemmed in by cliff and flame, the group staggers toward the end. As the Chapter 51-55 Summary recounts, Alyssa, facing the unthinkable, prepares to spare Garrett a worse death—when a water bomber, redirected off-mission, dumps its entire payload on them, quenching the blaze and their thirst in one life-saving deluge.

Part Six: A New Normal

Weeks later, relief has arrived, but the world has shifted on its axis. As the Chapter 56 Summary notes, Alyssa’s parents resurface—her mother injured in the beach riot, her father swept up and arrested in the turmoil. The teens part ways, bound by a trauma that will not release its grip. Society creaks back to life with restrictions and wary eyes. Everyone understands now how thin the membrane of civilization is—and what it cost to survive when it tore.

Central Characters

For fuller profiles, see the complete Character Overview.

Alyssa Morrow: A suburban teenager forced into leadership by necessity. Protecting Garrett drives every choice she makes, pushing her across moral lines and revealing a resolve that surprises even her. She becomes the group’s conscience and its edge.
Kelton McCracken: A lifelong prepper whose theories falter against reality. The Tap-Out initially validates him, but the siege and Brady’s death crush his certainties. He learns that survival skills aren’t the same as wisdom—and that community can be as vital as supplies.
Jacqui Costa: Tough, private, ruthlessly practical. She enters as a threat and becomes indispensable, her guarded care surfacing under fire. Jacqui’s arc chips away at cynicism to show hard-won loyalty.
Garrett Morrow: A child whose mistake detonates the plot and whose endurance reshapes it. Witnessing the worst of humanity ages him in days. He moves from naive dependence to alert, sober resilience.
Henry: Charismatic, clever, transactional. He thrives on leverage and the illusions he can sell, culminating in his ÁguaViva scam. In Henry, the book crystallizes the predatory logic of crisis capitalism.

Major Themes

For a broader discussion, visit the full Theme Overview.

Survival and Desperation: Dry strips characters to the bone, asking what “good” means when thirst rules. Theft, deception, and violence become tools, and the novel refuses easy judgments—salvation and monstrosity often share a decision.
The Breakdown of Social Order: With the Tap-Out, systems fail in dominoes—laws, logistics, trust. The book’s scariest idea is its plausibility: modern life rests on brittle infrastructure, and when it snaps, the fall is fast.
Human Nature: Civility vs. Savagery: “Water-zombies” hoard and harm; a “Water Angel” named Charity gives until it hurts. The protagonists oscillate between those poles, suggesting that kindness and cruelty are situational—and contagious.
Family and Loyalty: Blood bonds motivate heroism and tragedy alike—from Alyssa’s fierce protection of Garrett to the McCracken family’s unraveling. The teens forge a chosen family in crisis, proving loyalty can be built as well as born.
Resource Scarcity and Environmental Crisis: No meteor, no monsters—just drought, mismanagement, and politics. By anchoring its apocalypse in real-world scarcity, the novel becomes a warning shot about climate risk and collective responsibility.

Literary Significance

Dry revitalizes the YA survival thriller by swapping speculative spectacle for chilling realism. Its rotating perspectives and “Snapshot” interludes create a mosaic of collapse, balancing breathless set pieces with ethical pressure tests about rationing, responsibility, and who gets saved. The Shustermans push beyond genre beats to interrogate the psychology of disaster—how narratives of preparedness, entitlement, and fear shape outcomes. “There’s no radar image for a water crisis. No storm surges, no debris fields – the Tap-Out is as silent as cancer. There’s nothing to see, and so the news is treating it like a sidebar.” That quiet dread is Dry’s point and power: a catastrophe you can’t see coming until you’re already thirsty.

Historical Context

Published in 2018 amid California’s historic drought, Dry mirrors headlines about shrinking reservoirs, water rights, and rationing. Its fictional “Tap-Out” echoes real “Day Zero” scenarios like Cape Town’s brush with municipal shutdown the same year. Framed as cli-fi, the novel translates climate science and policy debates into lived stakes, making abstraction visceral.

Critical Reception

Critics praised Dry’s relentless pace, complex ensemble, and unnervingly credible premise. Reviewers called it “riveting” and “frighteningly realistic,” noting how it engages teens with knotty questions about ethics, governance, and resource inequity. The father–son collaboration lends immediacy and range, blending propulsive action with moments of blunt emotional clarity that linger after the last page.

Full Book Summary