The World Gives Way

 

By Marissa Levien

The last hope for humanity. The best and the brightest and, of course, the wealthiest on a massive spaceship headed to a new world and hopefully a new beginning, leaving behind a planet no longer alive.

Myrra Dal is a young woman, a slave on the ship, her life signed away by her ancestors as part of the price for a place onboard and a chance to survive. Myrra works as a servant and nanny to one of wealthiest families on the ship. So why do both her employers, man and wife, commit suicide one day, leaving behind their vast wealth and their baby daughter? The wife, selfish and privileged though she may have been, asks Myrra to take care of the baby, before jumping to her death, informing Myrra that the ship is failing and it will never reach its destination and everything on it is doomed. 

They filled the ship with the best of everything. They even brought on animals of all kinds, a sort of Noah's Ark. They brought their wealth, their gems, their artworks, all in a bid to save it from extinction. But all to no avail. A tragic flaw is causing the ship to slowly break apart and nothing they do has been able to stop its disintegration.

So here is Myrra, with a little girl not her own, and the wealth she looted from her dead bosses, facing the end of humankind and of all the precious lives of the many plants and animals they brought with them. She is one of the few who know the truth. How is she supposed to cope with the loss of hope? How is she supposed to care for the little one left in her charge who is equally doomed? 

This story is so depressing. If you weren't depressed before reading it, you probably will be after doing so. In the beginning of the story, there is the hope that something will be done to save at least some. But by the middle of the it, the author makes it quite clear that no one will survive. At about page 200 she tells us of "the deafening crashing noise that comes before everyone dies." At that point all hope for the reader of a happy ending is gone. The last half is about Myrra and those around her facing the facts and dealing with their eminent death.

On the plus side, the author really knows how to tell a riveting story that flows so smoothly and logically, it was a pleasure to read even though it left me in sorrow at the ending.  

Here is a review by Kirkus Reviews.