Road Out of Winter

By: Alison Stine

Narrated by: Brittany Pressley

2021 winner of the Philip K. Dick Award
A 2020 The Rumpus Book Club Selection

“Blends a rural thriller and speculative realism into what could be called dystopian noir…. Profoundly moving.”—Library Journal, starred review

In an endless winter, she carries seeds of hope

Wylodine comes from a world of paranoia and poverty—her family grows marijuana illegally, and life has always been a battle. Now she’s been left behind to tend the crop alone. Then spring doesn’t return for the second year in a row, bringing unprecedented, extreme winter.

With grow lights stashed in her truck and a pouch of precious seeds, she begins a journey, determined to start over away from Appalachian Ohio. But the icy roads and strangers hidden in the hills are treacherous. After a harrowing encounter with a violent cult, Wil and her small group of exiles become a target for the cult’s volatile leader. Because she has the most valuable skill in the climate chaos: she can make things grow.

Urgent and poignant, Road Out of Winter is a glimpse of an all-too-possible near future, with a chosen family forged in the face of dystopian collapse. Both gripping and lyrical, Stine’s vision is of a changing world where an unexpected hero searches for where hope might take root.

“Richly imagined, deeply moving and unthinkably offers hope in a world that uncannily resembles ours…. Gloriously well-written.” —Ms. Magazine

And don't miss the next literary speculative novel from Alison Stine, TRASHLANDS, coming October 2021.

This was just ok.

I was hoping for a more gritty or compelling story. It was fine. The ending was kind of a let down.

The narrator’s cadence was annoying too.

It wasn’t bad, just wasn’t great.

Disheartening Story

Disheartening story of the human condition post climate change. Maybe that was the intent. However, the lack of any real human spirit or reliable characters (either good or bad), made this a slow monotonous read.

However, the narration was great given the story.