The Carbon Diaries 2015 by Saci Lloyd

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
Laura Brown is a pretty normal British Teen. She plays guitar in a band, has a good group of friends, a crush on the boy next door, an annoying older sister, and parents who spend too much time talking about the old days. However, life in London cannot be normal anymore, despite what the government says. The entire country is being placed on carbon rationing, limiting what each citizen can buy, where they can travel, and even the length of a hot shower. Every single action that uses electricity or fossil fuels is limited and tracked by the state. As everyone tries to remain calm and normal, everyday life is turned upside down by violent weather, government control, and a growing black market. Laura's journal entries are pretty evenly divided between normal teen problems and the bizarre circumstances forced on an entire society by the greed and excess of the previous generation. This gives the book a creepy reality that is punctuate by the date in the title. Carbon rationing isn't taking place in some distant future, but in the year 2015.


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