The Displacements

A Novel

By: Bruce Holsinger

Narrated by: Austenne Grey

Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins

Publisher's summary

“Hypnotic.” – New York Times

“Cinematic.” – USA Today

"I gripped the covers of this book as though it might be blown from my hands. . .powerful." - Ron Charles, The Washington Post

"A full-throttle page turner."– Miranda Cowley Heller, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Paper Palace

An adrenaline-fueled story of lives upended and transformed by an unprecedented catastrophe

To all appearances, the Larsen-Hall family has everything: healthy children, a stable marriage, a lucrative career for Brantley, and the means for Daphne to pursue her art full-time. Their deluxe new Miami life has just clicked into place when Luna—the world’s first category 6 hurricane—upends everything they have taken for granted.

When the storm makes landfall, it triggers a descent of another sort. Their home destroyed, two of its members missing, and finances abruptly cut off, the family finds everything they assumed about their lives now up for grabs. Swept into a mass rush of evacuees from across the American South, they are transported hundreds of miles to a FEMA megashelter where their new community includes an insurance-agent-turned-drug dealer, a group of vulnerable children, and a dedicated relief worker trying to keep the peace. Will “normal” ever return?

A suspenseful story plotted on a vast national tapestry, The Displacements thrillingly explores what happens when privilege is lost and resilience is tested in a swiftly changing world.

©2022 Bruce Holsinger (P)2022 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“Bruce Holsinger has written a novel that succeeds in confronting the shocking realities of these times without being either apocalyptic or pessimistic. The Displacements is an urgent, powerful, unputdownable novel, filled with characters that are so vividly drawn that it is impossible not to care about them. A remarkable achievement.” (Amitav Ghosh, author of Sea of Poppies and The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable)

“The Displacements is a gripping, full-throttle page-turner. Realistic and immediate, it puts the reader right in the eye of the emotional storm, alongside its characters. As much as this is a wake-up call about the unpredictable nature of weather and life, it is most powerfully a propulsive family drama and a provocative story of human dignity, human indignity, and the deeper meanings of home.” (Miranda Cowley Heller, author of the number one New York Times best seller The Paper Palace)

Core of story is good but…..

I liked the core of the story but struggled with the back and forth and the intermittent news stories weaved through. I didn’t care for the narrator

listened to it straight through

it's definitely a good book, if a tad on the depressing side topic wise.

Very good!

A page turner with one plot flaw I could not overlook. Also the narrator was ok but not great. That being said, the book was very very good! Enjoy!!!

Great modern take on the big one

Excellent story of a modern catastrophe and how that could play out. Realistic! Great writing, characters and story flow.

A Novel that Can Help Save Life On Earth

Holsinger's Displacements is an incredibly important book. Climate change makes Hurricane Luna the most powerful storm system ever. It destroys South Florida, regains its strength in the Gulf of Mexico, and then destroys Houston. The novel tells the story of a few of the survivors. The characters are well developed, readers identify with them, and feel their pain. That is exactly what is needed for climate disaster mitigation. People need to feel in their bones what climate change will do to them, so they take action to prevent it. Such a book has to be a fun read, so people will want to read. Displacements is a fun read, and that makes it a must read. Don't miss this book!

A long listen… But a deep thinking one

In many ways I feel like this book ran way too long. So many of the characters are so truly human and flawed. But the perspective is one that I hadn’t ever had to walk in before because I don’t live near areas that major disasters could happen except a potential earthquake. So that said, it made me continue to think about our impact with climate change.

3.75 of 5 Stars

3.75 of 5 stars The Displacements by Bruce Holsinger
Narrated by Austenne Grey
*I will try to avoid spoilers, but some may slip into the discussion.
**Forgive any spelling mistakes. I may butcher people’s names since I heard the audiobook.
TLDR: It’s an okay story with fantastic narration.

Summary:
Premise: Hurricane Luna destroys a large part of Florida and Texas, sending people scrambling to safety in shelters across the U.S.
The story centers around four lives: the drug dealer, the rich woman, the loafer young man, and the lady in charge of the shelter.

Additional Comments:
• Performance: Strongest point of the audiobook. The narrator used different voices to distinguish characters. She has a nice voice, but I knew that going in because I’ve heard many of her other works.
• Main Characters: The only one who sort of has their crap together is Rain. The rest are varying degrees of hot mess.
• Drug dealer insurance guy – isn’t likable, but I don’t think he’s meant to be. There is one odd part thrown in about a personal family tragedy that’s supposed to make him more likable, but he still comes across as scum. Would be excellent characterization for the bad guy if it also didn’t slightly smack as token white guy in a very preachy story about worldwide climate disaster.
• The rich lady and her brood – kids bicker realistically. Daphne is likable in a you-poor-naïve-thing sort of way.
• Rain and her daughter have an interesting relationship. Honestly, the daughter was a completely superfluous character.
• Gavin (Rich Lady’s stepson) – probably has the most character growth; he’s kind of painted as a victim throughout.
• Minor Characters: Stereotypes to a man, woman, or child. The Bully, the Crazy White Dude, the Sainted Cute Migrant Kid, etc.
• Added preservation kind of audio museum entries were okay. There was a decent mix of them. Overall, I think they lent something good to the story. I took them as mini-tales and most of those had some closure.
• Some plot points were all too convenient. The author worked very, very hard to get them to one of those shelters. There’s one part (how her purse got misplaced) that’s kind of dumb. It was framed as an outsourced thing, but pretty much anybody knows that cash should be top priority when fleeing storms.
• Pacing is odd. It starts out with a short scene about a game the displacement kiddos play. It gives the book a Maze-Runner, Hunger Games, other YA dystopia like feel, which is (IMHO) the wrong vibe given the rest of the book. That portion was never so much as mentioned again until like 9 hours into the book.
• The stories do eventually tie together. Probably should have started with next section about Daphne’s perfect life as a metaphorical calm before the storm. (To be fair, I’ve never been a huge fan of the plot device to put an action/teaser type scene out of place to draw people in. In this case, it mostly just delays us getting to the real story.)
• Conclusions and fates: About what you suspect. Satisfying in many ways but not exactly paragons of true justice either. I think there are some purposeful plot holes (you’re just left to wonder if one certain thing was allowed to happen/ did happen.)
• Ending: It went beyond the natural stopping point to throw in one more scene that kind of leaves it with an incomplete feel. I get why, but it would have felt more complete to stop earlier.
• Messaging: (Among other cheery, doomsday gems – Humans have screwed up the world to an irreparable point.) Very, very strong to the point of tediousness, but there’s still a halfway decent story about survival buried in here too. It has some old school Twister type vibes.
• Content warning: Several F bombs (some justified, some casual use; I mention it because I tend to review kid books and so-clean-it-squeaks books.)

Conclusion:
If you enjoy well-performed doomsday dramas, this one is fine.

Good for book clubs

The book will probably prompt good discussion of how realistic this portrayal of the near future may be. As for story, I’d call it a yarn with characters that are familiar and predictable stereotypes.

Clunky Narrative and Preachy Message

I am an environmentalist and somebody who believes deeply that we ought to be doing something about climate change. And even I found this unbearable.

It preaches to a very specific choir, and those folks will nod along to it knowingly saying to themselves 'yep, this is exactly how it would happen.' everyone else who listens to it will go 'oh give me a break.' if this is meant to be a cautionary tale for those who minimize the meteorological threats exacerbated by climate change, it is written it no way even remotely close to being able to get through to them.

Good story but foul language

Enjoyed the story and the development of the characters. Did not enjoy the foul language and I think the book could’ve been written without it. Especially bothersome that kids under 11 were cussing the way that they were.