Stunningly good. ( )

This is a very beautifully written novel about life in the near future with the consequences of global change. The three young protagonists take turns as POVs of the novel. They are a pair of siblings and a daughter of an elderly caretaker of the "high house", a holiday home that ended up an off-the-grid shelter during the flood. The chapters are brief and lyrical, occasionally jumping through time. It is about the (lack of) hope and survival but in a philosophical way more than practical.

The High House reads like a study of coming to terms with the end of the world as we know it. The message is clearly important, but this take on it didn't offer anything new. It's simply hopeless and depressing.

There was something about the narrative that made me expect more, I waited for more of a culmination, either with events happening or the characters, so I felt slightly let down by this book at the end.

( )

Unpleasant poorly distinguished characters become beleaguered survivalists rather than move further inland when rising sea levels swallow their coastal village. If we’re supposed to assume that rising sea levels and rain drown the whole UK in a matter of weeks, I don’t think that’s how it works… ( )

Spare, beautifully written short novel set sometime in the future, past the point of no return. Anticipating climate catastrophe and the collapse of civilization, an environmental scientist prepares her family vacation home as a place of refuge for her young child and his caregivers. She knows she won't be around to raise him herself and that his only hope of living to adulthood is an isolated sanctuary, built on high ground, above the rising waters. Bleak, and all too real to imagine. ( )

"The High House" by Jessie Greengrass was my first venture into CliFi. The story is set in the future - it is not specified when exactly - and the world suffers the consequences of climate change. Caro and Pauly, the children of a climate scientist, arrive at the high house where everything is prepared for them to survive. There is a barn full of supplies, there are chicken and plant beds, the house features a mill and it is located by the sea, but on high ground. It is tended to by Sally and her grandfather, who was the village caretaker and possesses many skills that are forgotten by most, but are crucial now.
Soon, these four are cut off from the rest of the world and have to come to terms with each other, but also with themselves and their memories. It is a microcosmos of emotions, of memories, hopes and desperations, all driven by the need to survive and by the relationships between these characters.
Despite some heavy topics, it is a slow and quiet novel that lives from the descriptions of the natural world that surrounds the high house. The story felt rather depressing to me, but it also has some beautiful moments, and the characters seemed real and raw.
However, the criticism I have is that it all seems rather improbable to me, which is why I have to take one star off my rating. I don't mean climate change itself, but the way the people deal with it in this novel - on a large scale, but also on a small scale. The high house does not seem like the best place to survive, nor does the way it is equipped make much sense. But I do think that to be realistic in a practical sense is not the foremost goal of this novel, but rather to show how different characters might react under these circumstances. ( )