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Dreamland
''You said that you would come back. You looked me in the eye and said that. Well, if you had, this is what you would have seen: soft wood, black cracks, fridges in the road. The broken spines of old rides at Dreamland.'
In the coastal resort of Margate, hotels lie empty and sun-faded ‘For Sale’ signs line the streets. The sea is higher – it’s higher everywhere – and those who can are moving inland. A young girl called Chance, however, is just arriving.
Chance’s family is one of many offered a cash grant to move out of London - and so she, her mother Jas and brother JD relocate to the seaside, just as the country edges towards vertiginous change.
In their new home, they find space and wide skies, a world away from the cramped bedsits they’ve lived in up until now. But challenges swiftly mount. JD’s business partner, Kole, has a violent, charismatic energy that whirlpools around him and threatens to draw in the whole family. And when Chance comes across Franky, a girl her age she has never seen before – well-spoken and wearing sunscreen – something catches in the air between them. Their fates are bound: a connection that is immediate, unshakeable, and, in a time when social divides have never cut sharper, dangerous.
Set in a future unsettlingly close to home, against a backdrop of soaring inequality and creeping political extremism, Rankin-Gee demonstrates, with cinematic pace and deep humanity, the enduring power of love and hope in a world spinning out of control.
In the coastal resort of Margate, hotels lie empty and sun-faded ‘For Sale’ signs line the streets. The sea is higher – it’s higher everywhere – and those who can are moving inland. A young girl called Chance, however, is just arriving.
Chance’s family is one of many offered a cash grant to move out of London - and so she, her mother Jas and brother JD relocate to the seaside, just as the country edges towards vertiginous change.
In their new home, they find space and wide skies, a world away from the cramped bedsits they’ve lived in up until now. But challenges swiftly mount. JD’s business partner, Kole, has a violent, charismatic energy that whirlpools around him and threatens to draw in the whole family. And when Chance comes across Franky, a girl her age she has never seen before – well-spoken and wearing sunscreen – something catches in the air between them. Their fates are bound: a connection that is immediate, unshakeable, and, in a time when social divides have never cut sharper, dangerous.
Set in a future unsettlingly close to home, against a backdrop of soaring inequality and creeping political extremism, Rankin-Gee demonstrates, with cinematic pace and deep humanity, the enduring power of love and hope in a world spinning out of control.
480 pages, Hardcover
First published April 15, 2021
158 people are currently reading
4317 people want to read
About the author
Rosa Rankin-Gee
7 books62 followersHi! My name is Rosa.
I've written four novels and am working on my fifth, mostly at a McDonalds in Delhi, NY.
My first THE LAST KINGS OF SARK won Shakespeare and Company's Paris Literary Prize.
My second DREAMLAND has just been made into a 6-part drama for the BBC.
My third BACHELORETTES, is a romcom based on how I met wife, for Audible.
And my fourth, MY ONLY BOY, is coming out in May this year.
I live with my wife and our newborn daughter Mara in between a few different places, including the Catskills, the East Village and whenever I'm allowed to get back: England.
I've written four novels and am working on my fifth, mostly at a McDonalds in Delhi, NY.
My first THE LAST KINGS OF SARK won Shakespeare and Company's Paris Literary Prize.
My second DREAMLAND has just been made into a 6-part drama for the BBC.
My third BACHELORETTES, is a romcom based on how I met wife, for Audible.
And my fourth, MY ONLY BOY, is coming out in May this year.
I live with my wife and our newborn daughter Mara in between a few different places, including the Catskills, the East Village and whenever I'm allowed to get back: England.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 366 reviews
September 26, 2021
1,700 pages of Vasily Grossman's incredible writing about the Eastern Front WWII in Stalingrad and Life and Fate are a lot to deal with, so I decided to break them up a little with other novels. The first was 'Dreamland', which wasn't necessarily much lighter but made for quite a different reading experience. Rankin-Gee extrapolates a near-future world of climate change raising temperatures and sea levels on an impoverished part of the Kent coast. I found the setting of decaying Margate vivid, compelling, and plausible. I lived in Kent for a short while years ago and it certainly has great extremes of wealth and poverty; also it is falling into the sea. The sensory details of the sea's encroachment are very effective.
'Dreamland' follows Chance, a young thief from a dysfunctional family, as conditions in Margate deteriorate and government abandonment is succeeded by abrupt intervention. Chance's point of view demonstrates the arbitrary harshness of this neatly. With inexorable climate disaster as a background, she also falls in love. I enjoyed this subplot, as her dynamic and dialogue with Franky are the brightest elements of the novel. The twist regarding Franky's identity is quite easy to foresee yet powerful nonetheless. The other twist didn't work so well for me. I think 'Dreamland' succeeds well as a climate change novel focused on a very specific location and family, though. The intersection of poverty and environmental disaster is shown thoughtfully.
To go off on a slight tangent, the ending reminded me of a question I've been turning over since attending this excellent book festival event: how do you end a climate novel? The majority of novels about climate change I've read have not been Kim Stanley Robinson-style attempts to write a way out of the climate crisis; they have explored its specific emotional and/or social impacts either now or in the near future. Examples I've read recently include The Last Migration, The Sunlight Pilgrims, The Inland Sea, Weather, The Ice, Stillicide, Always North, and Gun Island. A novelist writing such a book is left with the difficult dilemma of how hopeful to make their ending, on both a character and setting level. In the examples listed, the ending is generally open and ambiguous on either or both levels, as indeed it is in 'Dreamland'. I think climate change poses a particular narrative problem, as it prevents life from just going on. If the characters survive until the end of the book, the reader cannot assume that they would continue to do so in a destablised world.
As Jessie Greengrass said during the book festival event, facing the reality of climate change is a lot like confronting the inevitability of your own death. That's incredibly hard to manage and I don't blame novelists for ending books more gently and ambivalently than with 'They died'. I find it interesting to observe this trend, though. Climate change novels have only become more common in the five or so years - prior to that I looked for and struggled to find them. The recent ones I've read (Kim Stanley Robinson aside) explore the immediate impacts through personal narratives rather than a polyphonic multiple narrator structure. I wonder if (and would like to think that) this is a first stage in Western fictional processing of the climate crisis and that we'll soon see more sprawling epics and attempts to write ourselves better futures. The ambiguous endings make for a more comfortable reading experience, while also slightly letting the reader off the hook. They leave space for the hope that everything will turn out OK on a personal level without massive socioeconomic change, so readers can assume this if inclined to. Based on the scientific evidence, I don't think that's remotely plausible and we in the rich world need to accept that massive change is happening whether we like it or not.
Perhaps what I'm waiting for is a novel like Nevil Shute's On the Beach, which is shocking and haunting in its depiction of human self-destructiveness. As an indictment of nuclear weapons, it is incredibly effective. Is there an equivalent novel for climate change yet? Endings are not the only aspect to this, although I think they're significant. Imagine if On the Beach had ended on an ambiguously hopeful note - that would have totally undercut its impact. Endings aside, reading Vasily Grossman has reminded me of just how powerfully fiction can convey the scale and horror of global disaster via a multiplicity of people caught up in it. While 'Dreamland' and my other examples are good novels, none of them truly conveyed the scale of climate change, nor frightened or haunted me. Taking a break from fiction that did, ironically, made me wish for novels about 2021's catastrophes that hit me as hard as Stalingrad. The only examples I can think of for environmental disaster were written in the 1960s and 1970s: Earthworks by Brian W. Aldiss and The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner.
'Dreamland' follows Chance, a young thief from a dysfunctional family, as conditions in Margate deteriorate and government abandonment is succeeded by abrupt intervention. Chance's point of view demonstrates the arbitrary harshness of this neatly. With inexorable climate disaster as a background, she also falls in love. I enjoyed this subplot, as her dynamic and dialogue with Franky are the brightest elements of the novel. The twist regarding Franky's identity is quite easy to foresee yet powerful nonetheless. The other twist didn't work so well for me. I think 'Dreamland' succeeds well as a climate change novel focused on a very specific location and family, though. The intersection of poverty and environmental disaster is shown thoughtfully.
To go off on a slight tangent, the ending reminded me of a question I've been turning over since attending this excellent book festival event: how do you end a climate novel? The majority of novels about climate change I've read have not been Kim Stanley Robinson-style attempts to write a way out of the climate crisis; they have explored its specific emotional and/or social impacts either now or in the near future. Examples I've read recently include The Last Migration, The Sunlight Pilgrims, The Inland Sea, Weather, The Ice, Stillicide, Always North, and Gun Island. A novelist writing such a book is left with the difficult dilemma of how hopeful to make their ending, on both a character and setting level. In the examples listed, the ending is generally open and ambiguous on either or both levels, as indeed it is in 'Dreamland'. I think climate change poses a particular narrative problem, as it prevents life from just going on. If the characters survive until the end of the book, the reader cannot assume that they would continue to do so in a destablised world.
As Jessie Greengrass said during the book festival event, facing the reality of climate change is a lot like confronting the inevitability of your own death. That's incredibly hard to manage and I don't blame novelists for ending books more gently and ambivalently than with 'They died'. I find it interesting to observe this trend, though. Climate change novels have only become more common in the five or so years - prior to that I looked for and struggled to find them. The recent ones I've read (Kim Stanley Robinson aside) explore the immediate impacts through personal narratives rather than a polyphonic multiple narrator structure. I wonder if (and would like to think that) this is a first stage in Western fictional processing of the climate crisis and that we'll soon see more sprawling epics and attempts to write ourselves better futures. The ambiguous endings make for a more comfortable reading experience, while also slightly letting the reader off the hook. They leave space for the hope that everything will turn out OK on a personal level without massive socioeconomic change, so readers can assume this if inclined to. Based on the scientific evidence, I don't think that's remotely plausible and we in the rich world need to accept that massive change is happening whether we like it or not.
Perhaps what I'm waiting for is a novel like Nevil Shute's On the Beach, which is shocking and haunting in its depiction of human self-destructiveness. As an indictment of nuclear weapons, it is incredibly effective. Is there an equivalent novel for climate change yet? Endings are not the only aspect to this, although I think they're significant. Imagine if On the Beach had ended on an ambiguously hopeful note - that would have totally undercut its impact. Endings aside, reading Vasily Grossman has reminded me of just how powerfully fiction can convey the scale and horror of global disaster via a multiplicity of people caught up in it. While 'Dreamland' and my other examples are good novels, none of them truly conveyed the scale of climate change, nor frightened or haunted me. Taking a break from fiction that did, ironically, made me wish for novels about 2021's catastrophes that hit me as hard as Stalingrad. The only examples I can think of for environmental disaster were written in the 1960s and 1970s: Earthworks by Brian W. Aldiss and The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner.
April 22, 2021
Dystopian, speculative fiction with a gorgeous and intense queer love story, complex family dynamics and characters with so much heart.
This was a perfect book for me and I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys work from similar authors like Margaret Atwood. It's clear that a lot of love and research went into this book, and the imagined UK and worldwide government response to rising sea levels was both tragic and very believable.
5/5, read this book!!!
This was a perfect book for me and I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys work from similar authors like Margaret Atwood. It's clear that a lot of love and research went into this book, and the imagined UK and worldwide government response to rising sea levels was both tragic and very believable.
5/5, read this book!!!
February 23, 2021
A love story. A tragedy. A warning. The story of one girl and an entire society. At the same time, terrifying and hopeful. Dreamland takes the familiar and twists it a couple of degrees to show a disturbing and disturbingly credible picture of our possible future. What will happen if we keep ignoring climate change, allow inequalities to widen, allow eugenics to creep into the mainstream and build walls?
Through the eyes of a girl called Chance, the most unlucky luckiest, most vulnerable toughest of heroines, Dreamland presents
a compelling and unsettling vision of what our society could look like if climate change and right wing ideologies are allowed to unroll to their worst conclusions. The world was so real and so engrossing that I would look up from the page and feel that I was still there. I took Chance to my heart and feel like she will stay there.
The writing is fabulous. This is proper literary fiction, full of earthiness, class and depth, without pretension or trickery. This book is really good.
Through the eyes of a girl called Chance, the most unlucky luckiest, most vulnerable toughest of heroines, Dreamland presents
a compelling and unsettling vision of what our society could look like if climate change and right wing ideologies are allowed to unroll to their worst conclusions. The world was so real and so engrossing that I would look up from the page and feel that I was still there. I took Chance to my heart and feel like she will stay there.
The writing is fabulous. This is proper literary fiction, full of earthiness, class and depth, without pretension or trickery. This book is really good.
February 22, 2021
Dreamland is up there with the bleakest books I've read to the point of almost being overwhelming. It imagines a not too distant future where patterns relocating people living in London council houses and climate change merge together with catastrophic consequences. The dread and horror is unrelenting, while also hitting a little too close to home.
What kept me going was Chance, the main character of the book. The book is filled with complicated, difficult to like people but Chance loves all of them in her own way. She has this desperate desire to trust and to help, even when it's clear that she shouldn't. Nobody thanks for it and it ends up hurting her in many different ways, each more heartbreaking than the last. But her perseverance and loving heart is properly inspiring.
The storyline was unpredictable in a fantastic way. There were quite a few developments that I didn't see coming but most don't hit as big twist moments, instead you're subtly given information that allows you to build your own picture.
There's a note at the end of the book that talks about which elements were inspired by real events and it makes for damning reading. It's not a hopeful book and it's certainly not easy to read in these times but it definitely has a message that's worth hearing.
What kept me going was Chance, the main character of the book. The book is filled with complicated, difficult to like people but Chance loves all of them in her own way. She has this desperate desire to trust and to help, even when it's clear that she shouldn't. Nobody thanks for it and it ends up hurting her in many different ways, each more heartbreaking than the last. But her perseverance and loving heart is properly inspiring.
The storyline was unpredictable in a fantastic way. There were quite a few developments that I didn't see coming but most don't hit as big twist moments, instead you're subtly given information that allows you to build your own picture.
There's a note at the end of the book that talks about which elements were inspired by real events and it makes for damning reading. It's not a hopeful book and it's certainly not easy to read in these times but it definitely has a message that's worth hearing.
April 15, 2023
Phewww I've been fully taken in by this book the last couple of days. It's dystopian but doesn't feel so far from the present, citing climate change impacts and fooked up Brit politics. Snappy, funny dialogue, painfully vivid characters and relationships made it pretty heart breaking and bleak but if this ain't what writing fiction is about, I dunno what is!
November 24, 2023
Rep: sapphic mc
CWs: drug use, alcohol abuse, overdose, domestic abuse
CWs: drug use, alcohol abuse, overdose, domestic abuse
December 18, 2024
4.5! A very real-feeling dystopia set on a coastal city outside of London, left to fend for itself against the rising sea level. Shit gets real and really bad
June 26, 2021
It must have been around 2010 when I first heard about working class families being moved out of London. I worked at the time for the London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea – the richest borough in Europe and also the most conservative. Despite its wealth, it was that period after the 2008 crash when the Tory government was trying to cut back on everything, including “undesirables” who lived in council housing in prime locations.
I’ve learned more recently through a documentary that this has been going on for quite some time, as far back as the creation of Canary Wharf, London’s new financial zone, where entire council estates were moved out of London to make way for new developments. One story stuck in my mind: of an elderly woman who lived alone and relied on her neighbours for help, suddenly moved away and placed in a completely foreign town, with nobody she knew.
Rosa Rankin-Gee’s novel is very much about this – about poor families given “grants” to move out of London in a not-too-distant future where the temperature and sea levels have risen and the rich are moving further inland. One such family happens to be Chance’s, the young queer narrator of this novel, who gets moved around from hostel to hostel with her brother and mother, until finally settling in Margate, a once thriving English seaside town that crumbled when cheap holiday flights became available to Europe. Life is at first OK for Chance, she makes friends in town and learns to scavenge abandoned homes. But as the ocean moves further and further inland, their lives fall apart.
Chance tells the story to her lesbian lover Frankie, almost in an epistolary style. It’s a narrative devise that makes the story feel very intimate. I was also reminded of recent dystopia novels. The way these characters live very mundane lives in a world set up against them was reminiscent of Kazuo Ishiguro’s “Never Let Me Go”, but also J.G. Ballard’s “The Drowned World”, when the ocean levels start to rise (there are also other Ballardian themes, like class warfare and the breakdown of technology). Survivors create a vegetable garden on a building rooftop, not unlike the God’s Gardeners in Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy. And, finally, when society has properly collapsed, we get survival of the fittest reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road”.
It took Rosa 7 years to write this novel. I’m guessing a lot of the time was spent polishing the similes, which are laid out aplenty and are very good. It’s the first novel I read where COVID-19 is mentioned – it must have been worked into the plot towards the end, just before the final proofs were signed off. Here are some of the similes I really liked:
“The squawks of seagulls were like someone hammering on a doorbell.”
“The sun that night was a perfect coin as it slotted down into the sea.”
“I looked out of the window and along the coast. There was this spreading out of light, all of it like fern unfolding in a nature documentary.”
“On the wires between his building and the one across the street, there were sparrows perched, evenly spaced, like fairy lights.”
“We headed west past the station, the opposite direction to the harbour, past old hotels, the awnings above each window fluttering like eyelashes in the wind.”
“In the morning, some of the wind turbines out at sea had lost propellers. They looked like daisies with their petals ripped off.”
A few threads are left loose by the end, and the final scene is a cliff-hanger of sorts, which leads me to suspect there will be a sequel. I really hope there is! Perhaps with Frankie telling her story back to Chance?
I’ve learned more recently through a documentary that this has been going on for quite some time, as far back as the creation of Canary Wharf, London’s new financial zone, where entire council estates were moved out of London to make way for new developments. One story stuck in my mind: of an elderly woman who lived alone and relied on her neighbours for help, suddenly moved away and placed in a completely foreign town, with nobody she knew.
Rosa Rankin-Gee’s novel is very much about this – about poor families given “grants” to move out of London in a not-too-distant future where the temperature and sea levels have risen and the rich are moving further inland. One such family happens to be Chance’s, the young queer narrator of this novel, who gets moved around from hostel to hostel with her brother and mother, until finally settling in Margate, a once thriving English seaside town that crumbled when cheap holiday flights became available to Europe. Life is at first OK for Chance, she makes friends in town and learns to scavenge abandoned homes. But as the ocean moves further and further inland, their lives fall apart.
Chance tells the story to her lesbian lover Frankie, almost in an epistolary style. It’s a narrative devise that makes the story feel very intimate. I was also reminded of recent dystopia novels. The way these characters live very mundane lives in a world set up against them was reminiscent of Kazuo Ishiguro’s “Never Let Me Go”, but also J.G. Ballard’s “The Drowned World”, when the ocean levels start to rise (there are also other Ballardian themes, like class warfare and the breakdown of technology). Survivors create a vegetable garden on a building rooftop, not unlike the God’s Gardeners in Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy. And, finally, when society has properly collapsed, we get survival of the fittest reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy’s “The Road”.
It took Rosa 7 years to write this novel. I’m guessing a lot of the time was spent polishing the similes, which are laid out aplenty and are very good. It’s the first novel I read where COVID-19 is mentioned – it must have been worked into the plot towards the end, just before the final proofs were signed off. Here are some of the similes I really liked:
“The squawks of seagulls were like someone hammering on a doorbell.”
“The sun that night was a perfect coin as it slotted down into the sea.”
“I looked out of the window and along the coast. There was this spreading out of light, all of it like fern unfolding in a nature documentary.”
“On the wires between his building and the one across the street, there were sparrows perched, evenly spaced, like fairy lights.”
“We headed west past the station, the opposite direction to the harbour, past old hotels, the awnings above each window fluttering like eyelashes in the wind.”
“In the morning, some of the wind turbines out at sea had lost propellers. They looked like daisies with their petals ripped off.”
A few threads are left loose by the end, and the final scene is a cliff-hanger of sorts, which leads me to suspect there will be a sequel. I really hope there is! Perhaps with Frankie telling her story back to Chance?
February 16, 2021
Thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster UK (Scribner UK) for an ARC of this book.
Release date: 15th April 2021.
Dreamland is set in the near future, a dystopian novel that highlights some very real potential threats to the UK and its seaside towns. Chance is our main character, from a poor family suffering in London who are given the seemingly optimistic opportunity to move to Margate and start a new life. The realities of this move drag Chance’s family into a situation that is just as bad as before, but with some added drama too. A content warning for sustained drug use, domestic abuse, suicide and death is definitely needed! They are handled well, but run graphically through the book – so just be aware! 🙂
This book definitely earns the title of a rollercoaster and not even a rusted one from Dreamland. My heart was broken by multiple characters, multiple times, and Rankin-Gee’s characters all have intricate layers that lay under their initially tough exteriors. Chance, our protagonist, goes through such a journey and it’s both full of hope and filled with despair. She is such a complex character, who has to adapt so much.
The ongoing dark cloud for Margate in Dreamland is the ever-rising tide and erratic weather – a major threat to the town and those left living there. Due to global warming and climate change, this is affecting the entire planet, and Rankin-Gee gives nods to how other countries are also trying to tackle this issue. The ways the UK government (in the book…) decide to help is very believable with aid sent sporadically and an evacuation system based on personal merit and usefulness to society. Temporary fixes breed longer-term issues. Several aid charities start to focus on the area, and this is where we meet Franky.
Chance and Franky’s relationship becomes an escape from the reality of Chance’s situation, although this becomes fraught with questions and secrecy. Franky’s link to the area is an interesting development, and her character is a well-utilised juxtaposition to Chance.
My only issue with this book was the ending point. Rankin-Gee weaves some beautiful writing into a story that is often harsh and aggressive, and although I can understand the open-ended imagination prompting ending, I am so invested in these characters that it’s a little disappointing to not know a little more. However, I still gave Dreamland 5 stars because the rest of the book deserves it, and I can understand why the ending could be like it was. However, if you’d like to tell me what happens with a certain child, Rosa, please do!
After the actual text (certainly in the ARC), Rankin-Gee has also included a list of resources and information about the very real versions of the events of the books. She highlights several of the existing government programmes designed to regenerate towns and to displace those from the cities. Nothing in Dreamland is as farfetched as we’d like it to be. I have family in Kent and live in Norfolk. I have seen coastal erosion and its effects first-hand, so seeing the potential impact of the climate change for these areas long-term does have a scary edge to it.
A five-star look into a future that is a little too believable, and beautiful characters who are trying so hard to just stay afloat.
Release date: 15th April 2021.
Dreamland is set in the near future, a dystopian novel that highlights some very real potential threats to the UK and its seaside towns. Chance is our main character, from a poor family suffering in London who are given the seemingly optimistic opportunity to move to Margate and start a new life. The realities of this move drag Chance’s family into a situation that is just as bad as before, but with some added drama too. A content warning for sustained drug use, domestic abuse, suicide and death is definitely needed! They are handled well, but run graphically through the book – so just be aware! 🙂
This book definitely earns the title of a rollercoaster and not even a rusted one from Dreamland. My heart was broken by multiple characters, multiple times, and Rankin-Gee’s characters all have intricate layers that lay under their initially tough exteriors. Chance, our protagonist, goes through such a journey and it’s both full of hope and filled with despair. She is such a complex character, who has to adapt so much.
The ongoing dark cloud for Margate in Dreamland is the ever-rising tide and erratic weather – a major threat to the town and those left living there. Due to global warming and climate change, this is affecting the entire planet, and Rankin-Gee gives nods to how other countries are also trying to tackle this issue. The ways the UK government (in the book…) decide to help is very believable with aid sent sporadically and an evacuation system based on personal merit and usefulness to society. Temporary fixes breed longer-term issues. Several aid charities start to focus on the area, and this is where we meet Franky.
Chance and Franky’s relationship becomes an escape from the reality of Chance’s situation, although this becomes fraught with questions and secrecy. Franky’s link to the area is an interesting development, and her character is a well-utilised juxtaposition to Chance.
My only issue with this book was the ending point. Rankin-Gee weaves some beautiful writing into a story that is often harsh and aggressive, and although I can understand the open-ended imagination prompting ending, I am so invested in these characters that it’s a little disappointing to not know a little more. However, I still gave Dreamland 5 stars because the rest of the book deserves it, and I can understand why the ending could be like it was. However, if you’d like to tell me what happens with a certain child, Rosa, please do!
After the actual text (certainly in the ARC), Rankin-Gee has also included a list of resources and information about the very real versions of the events of the books. She highlights several of the existing government programmes designed to regenerate towns and to displace those from the cities. Nothing in Dreamland is as farfetched as we’d like it to be. I have family in Kent and live in Norfolk. I have seen coastal erosion and its effects first-hand, so seeing the potential impact of the climate change for these areas long-term does have a scary edge to it.
A five-star look into a future that is a little too believable, and beautiful characters who are trying so hard to just stay afloat.
July 3, 2022
"I know about Localisation. I know all that. We're supposed to look after ourselves. But people were dying. And when they did come, the London people, the government or whatever, it wasn't ambulances. It wasn't to help people fix their houses. They arrested people who were stealing. Not even bad stealing. Stealing to eat."
TW: domestic violence, drugs, rape.
Dreamland is a harrowing look into what happens when your country gives up on you and removes its responsibility for citizens as a whole. London is aptly described as a "fourth world country" by the protagonist. The story begins when Chance and her family receive a monetary incentive to move out of London to the deprived seaside town of Margate. New laws slowly come into place including Localisation, which is the total divestment of control to local councils. The result - abject poverty.
"They've left us to die, again and again. Turned the power off. Turned hospitals off".
As climate change rages on and coastal towns are slowly experiencing more flooding, the government finally steps in, to relocate citizens on a graded basis - using a system that looks at how 'useful' citizens are to society, valuing those who give rather than take, whilst the rest of the world quickly stops paying attention.
The book is an insightful look into the way society views individuals and ranks them based on their financial value over a more humanist approach. The judgement placed on those in need, totally dismissing the impact of access to resources, as well as the ease with which people can turn on others to save themselves.
Additionally, growing up in a coastal town that has never recovered from the impact of international holidays, combined with working in London today, I'd say the book is extremely accurate for the disparity between the capital and the coastal towns experiences. The book is accessible and opens discussions on a very real issue today, where citizens are being encouraged out of London into these commuter towns which don't receive anywhere near as much support.
Big fan.
TW: domestic violence, drugs, rape.
Dreamland is a harrowing look into what happens when your country gives up on you and removes its responsibility for citizens as a whole. London is aptly described as a "fourth world country" by the protagonist. The story begins when Chance and her family receive a monetary incentive to move out of London to the deprived seaside town of Margate. New laws slowly come into place including Localisation, which is the total divestment of control to local councils. The result - abject poverty.
"They've left us to die, again and again. Turned the power off. Turned hospitals off".
As climate change rages on and coastal towns are slowly experiencing more flooding, the government finally steps in, to relocate citizens on a graded basis - using a system that looks at how 'useful' citizens are to society, valuing those who give rather than take, whilst the rest of the world quickly stops paying attention.
The book is an insightful look into the way society views individuals and ranks them based on their financial value over a more humanist approach. The judgement placed on those in need, totally dismissing the impact of access to resources, as well as the ease with which people can turn on others to save themselves.
Additionally, growing up in a coastal town that has never recovered from the impact of international holidays, combined with working in London today, I'd say the book is extremely accurate for the disparity between the capital and the coastal towns experiences. The book is accessible and opens discussions on a very real issue today, where citizens are being encouraged out of London into these commuter towns which don't receive anywhere near as much support.
Big fan.
August 29, 2024
I'd rate as a 3.5, the plot/concept was incredible. Eerily plausible, it was a bleak, confronting important read. Effects of climate change mixed with economic disparity were portrayed very well. However, I think the execution was a little off. The dialogue at times seemed juvenile and some of the twists unnecessary - particularly that of baby blue. Some parts also seemed too coincidental which was jarring. I couldn't put the book down due to the great plot. The open ending was a little frustrating - but how to end a climate change novel seems a huge task. Let the characters live and tie lose ends may have made the book overly/unrealistically hopeful. On the other hand, killing the characters is a dismal end.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 25, 2021
COULD NOT PUT IT DOWN!
I can’t stress enough how much I loved this book. The story was incredibly gripping, there wasn’t a dull moment, it drew me in right at the start. I loved all the characters, flaws and all, it made them feel so real, like they were people you knew or had met before somehow.
Only a few books have given me this kind of satisfied yet can’t-stop-thinking-about-it-I-want-more feeling. This was one of them. I was entranced from the first page to the last (the author’s note is a must read !!!).
Can’t wait to read more from this author.
I can’t stress enough how much I loved this book. The story was incredibly gripping, there wasn’t a dull moment, it drew me in right at the start. I loved all the characters, flaws and all, it made them feel so real, like they were people you knew or had met before somehow.
Only a few books have given me this kind of satisfied yet can’t-stop-thinking-about-it-I-want-more feeling. This was one of them. I was entranced from the first page to the last (the author’s note is a must read !!!).
Can’t wait to read more from this author.
March 1, 2021
The world is going to hell in a handbasket, politicians are corrupt, the rich get richer at the expense of the poor, and global warming is going to kill us all.
This is (another) book trying to drive home what we all already know.
Is it a bad book? No.
Doesn't it bring anything new to the unendingly depressing table?
Also, no.
This is (another) book trying to drive home what we all already know.
Is it a bad book? No.
Doesn't it bring anything new to the unendingly depressing table?
Also, no.
August 1, 2022
This is a dystopian novel based on the rising sea levels and overpopulation with families being offered cash to leave their homes and move to the coasts, despite this being a death wish.
*
It really worries me that we live in a world that is deteriorating so quickly. Weather is more drastic, global warming a scary reality. This book more than anything has taught me we really need to make a change. I hate the thought of my children or my grandchildren suffering as a consequence of what we and past generations have done to the world. It also makes me very afraid of governments but that's always been the same!
*
Alongside the dystopian theme is an LGBTQ+ theme as well as themes of poverty, abuse, teenage pregnancy and drugs
*
It really worries me that we live in a world that is deteriorating so quickly. Weather is more drastic, global warming a scary reality. This book more than anything has taught me we really need to make a change. I hate the thought of my children or my grandchildren suffering as a consequence of what we and past generations have done to the world. It also makes me very afraid of governments but that's always been the same!
*
Alongside the dystopian theme is an LGBTQ+ theme as well as themes of poverty, abuse, teenage pregnancy and drugs
November 12, 2022
4.5 ⭐️
September 20, 2024
Ticked all the boxes for me. A dystopia that doesn't seem very far away somehow, explores queer love and the complexities of many different relationships, a haunting, crumbling setting - beautifully told. Also, there are lots of really good twists.
April 27, 2023
Set in a new future dystopia which isn’t really my thing but a scary take on what may easily happen here with climate change!
March 6, 2025
A book about the lower working class, economic decline in forgotten towns, and the disastrous effects of climate change which will hurt the marginalised communities more than the others.
I enjoyed this book but I did expect it to be more speculative from the blurb and from the reviews of it. It was mostly a coming-of-age novel, and the climate disaster aspects don't start becoming a huge point of the book until the last third. It does enter into the dystopian-realm but it takes a while to get there, and most of the book is about the effect of economic decline on a small seaside down and how a young girl called Chance has to learnt to fend for herself. She has a mother who doesn't seem to want to know her and an abusive step-dad. Some of the scenes in this book are really scary and sad, but the entire feel of the book is very gritty and raw.
One thing I liked a lot about the book was how it really portrayed the reality of how the poorer communities will be treated during a climate disaster. People who are unemployed or on benefits will be conveniently forgotten about and the educated and wealthy with be prioritised. It is such a sickening thought but this book does well to expose the class divide for all of it's horror and how it doesn't just affect the money we earn or where we live, but could at some point in the future affect our livelihoods.
This book was slightly too long for me and I would have enjoyed it if the pace was a bit faster, or if the book focused more on the dystopian aspects and the climate stuff. But that might have been at the fault of my expectation going into it. It was a good book and the characters were brilliant, just wanted to be a bit more obsessed with it than I was.
I enjoyed this book but I did expect it to be more speculative from the blurb and from the reviews of it. It was mostly a coming-of-age novel, and the climate disaster aspects don't start becoming a huge point of the book until the last third. It does enter into the dystopian-realm but it takes a while to get there, and most of the book is about the effect of economic decline on a small seaside down and how a young girl called Chance has to learnt to fend for herself. She has a mother who doesn't seem to want to know her and an abusive step-dad. Some of the scenes in this book are really scary and sad, but the entire feel of the book is very gritty and raw.
One thing I liked a lot about the book was how it really portrayed the reality of how the poorer communities will be treated during a climate disaster. People who are unemployed or on benefits will be conveniently forgotten about and the educated and wealthy with be prioritised. It is such a sickening thought but this book does well to expose the class divide for all of it's horror and how it doesn't just affect the money we earn or where we live, but could at some point in the future affect our livelihoods.
This book was slightly too long for me and I would have enjoyed it if the pace was a bit faster, or if the book focused more on the dystopian aspects and the climate stuff. But that might have been at the fault of my expectation going into it. It was a good book and the characters were brilliant, just wanted to be a bit more obsessed with it than I was.
July 22, 2024
It’s addictive in a way. Anything that’s rare enough tricks you. It makes you want it.
3.5 stars. It's hard to put my thoughts together about this one. I took a day to collect my thoughts, and I still have my critiques, though I really liked this. It's science fiction in the near future dystopia genre, dealing a lot with climate change, poverty and class differences, and has such a great main character, really great writing and insight. Beautiful and painful in a lot of ways. This was one of those books where I had almost no idea of where we'd be going with the story, and that was pretty rewarding in the long run. But there were also some narrative decisions that... idk. They weren't objectively bad, but to ME, they weakened the story and the message a lot. And this has the type of ending that I could usually really like, but in this case, it felt kinda weak.
We're following Chance, a young woman who lives with her older brother and mother in the near future when climate change and dwindling resources and politics are wreaking havoc in the world. Chance's mom takes a government cash grant to move out of London, and they relocate to a dying seaside village. The situation continues to worsen, and a few years later, Chance meets a girl her age who has come to their town with an aid organisation. The atmospheric writing was amazing. The author did a great job of balancing the horror and danger of the rising seas with the beauty and desolation of the coast. The love story was really wonderfully told, with the kind of intense, unfortunate obsession that first love often comes with. Attraction that feels helpless and inevitable is like candy to me, especially when written like this. The entire book had this melancholy feel to it, but the writing was also quippy and humorous in a lot of ways, and it saved the book from being a bit too heavy. Chance's relationships all felt so wonderful, with her brothers, with Davey, with Franky, with her mentor. I keep repeating myself, but there was so much beauty in the writing. And there was desolation as well (the hunger, the ubiquity of drugs, the rising tides, the rampant illness), but written in such an insightful way. This was one of those near future dystopias that was scary because of how extreme and yet believable it was. I can clearly see how things could get this way.
It wasn’t soft like people say it’s soft. We crashed into each other. I took handfuls of you. We never wanted to stop. And for days that turned into weeks, we didn’t.
I started liking the book a bit less around the 60% mark, where we got a certain revelation. It was probably supposed to be a gut-punch, probably supposed to make a certain sad situation even sadder, probably supposed to make us think. Instead, imo, it just made the book flat out worse. This was close to a 5 star, and after that point, it just plummeted. Spoilers ahead. This isn't the kind of book where I expected a happy ending or perfect closure, and at a certain point, I was pretty sure we would never see certain characters again, so it's not like I was disappointed about that. But still, the ending was just TOO open and abrupt for me.
Listened to the audiobook as read by Kristin Atherton, and it was EXCELLENT. Every single voice sounded so alive, so animated, so real. The narration voice was great, but this really shone when it came to dialogue and slang. She really brought this to life. One of the things I loved about the book was that it was all written from Chance to Franky, and the narration really spoke to that. It's part of what made me feel so close to the characters earlier on in the book. I really wish I'd liked the second half as much as I liked the first. And it's not that I disliked it! I really enjoyed the revelations, the deeper diving into how the world and England got to this state. We got glimpses of what it might be like in other countries, and it was horrible and sad and really moving. So I did like the book a lot. This is just the disappointment of knowing that I could have loved it. But hey, the thing that I dislike is subjective and would probably seem silly to other readers, so I'd still give this a solid rec.
Content warnings:
And as I walked, each step became a beat, some kind of ‘if’. The thinness of that word, how much it can mean.
December 14, 2021
Very intense, dark, grim, violent read. Very ambitious in terms of plot and scope. I was not into the love story at all and I honestly feel it could have been cut from the book entirely (only because I am a ruthless editor).
August 4, 2022
As much as I know the world is doomed, a kinder and more conclusive ending would have made a better read. I appreciate that that was intentional. Would recommend avoiding this one for now if you’re someone that finds ominous talk about the future depressing (like me).
March 14, 2024
great premise and interesting themes but didn't fully deliver for me
June 22, 2023
Setting: Margate, Kent, UK; the near future(?).
In the midst of a climate crisis, with rising sea levels and soaring temperatures (up to 50C), Chance's family accept money from a foundation to relocate from appalling conditions in London to the seaside town of Margate, from where her mum, Jas, originated. But, as the seas continue to rise and occasionally inundate parts of the town, the family wage a continued war to survive on benefits. In the midst of this, Chance rescues Franky (Francesca) from a gang of boys and they feel an immediate attraction, which rapidly turns into a relationship. Then a political change comes about and a LandSave project is launched, with local people employed on building infrastructure for the project - until locals realise that what they are actually building is a massive wall, several miles inland. If this is for flood protection, residents are concerned that this means their town is going to be sacrificed to the rising sea levels. As the Government launch their relocation programme, Chance discovers that her family is classed as 'deferred', which means their moving date is not set - apparently indefinitely. Chance discovers that Franky is in fact part of the LandSave project team but even her intervention apparently can't get Chance's family on the relocation list....
This is a gripping dystopian tale, but perhaps even more disturbing as you could really see this happening not that many years in the future if national governments don't get a grip on the climate crisis. It paints a pretty bleak picture of what could happen to the 'least useful' in society and how, and by who, that is determined - quite scary in fact. Great writing and characters in this one with gritty and dark events make this an interesting yet disturbing read - 8/10.
In the midst of a climate crisis, with rising sea levels and soaring temperatures (up to 50C), Chance's family accept money from a foundation to relocate from appalling conditions in London to the seaside town of Margate, from where her mum, Jas, originated. But, as the seas continue to rise and occasionally inundate parts of the town, the family wage a continued war to survive on benefits. In the midst of this, Chance rescues Franky (Francesca) from a gang of boys and they feel an immediate attraction, which rapidly turns into a relationship. Then a political change comes about and a LandSave project is launched, with local people employed on building infrastructure for the project - until locals realise that what they are actually building is a massive wall, several miles inland. If this is for flood protection, residents are concerned that this means their town is going to be sacrificed to the rising sea levels. As the Government launch their relocation programme, Chance discovers that her family is classed as 'deferred', which means their moving date is not set - apparently indefinitely. Chance discovers that Franky is in fact part of the LandSave project team but even her intervention apparently can't get Chance's family on the relocation list....
This is a gripping dystopian tale, but perhaps even more disturbing as you could really see this happening not that many years in the future if national governments don't get a grip on the climate crisis. It paints a pretty bleak picture of what could happen to the 'least useful' in society and how, and by who, that is determined - quite scary in fact. Great writing and characters in this one with gritty and dark events make this an interesting yet disturbing read - 8/10.
August 17, 2024
Excellent dystopian novel set in in Margate that is hauntingly close to our own present. Despite the bleak undertones and life of crime the main characters follow, this is a novel about; hope, survival, 'first love' and loyalty to family, even if those relationships aren't always so healthy.
I couldn't put this down and read the last 300 pages in one evening. I haven't felt that way about a book for a while. Just when I thought I had sussed put the protagonist there were some emotional little twists and turns that I wasn't expecting.
The only downside was that I wanted more...as the ending is a slight cliffhanger...but at the same time it probably couldn't have ended a better way.
Some of the events that happen within the novel are scarily accurate reflection on events that have actually happened in the UK under Tory rule, in particular with regards to social housing and immigration. Highly recommend for fans of Atwood, reminds me of what Atwood said when talking about 'The Handmaids Tale', 'nothing went into it that had not happened in real life somewhere at some time'. Gee raises awareness of these issues and makes references to them at the end of the novel.
I couldn't put this down and read the last 300 pages in one evening. I haven't felt that way about a book for a while. Just when I thought I had sussed put the protagonist there were some emotional little twists and turns that I wasn't expecting.
The only downside was that I wanted more...as the ending is a slight cliffhanger...but at the same time it probably couldn't have ended a better way.
Some of the events that happen within the novel are scarily accurate reflection on events that have actually happened in the UK under Tory rule, in particular with regards to social housing and immigration. Highly recommend for fans of Atwood, reminds me of what Atwood said when talking about 'The Handmaids Tale', 'nothing went into it that had not happened in real life somewhere at some time'. Gee raises awareness of these issues and makes references to them at the end of the novel.
June 6, 2025
Rosa Rankin-Gee’s Dreamland is one of the best literary dystopias I’ve read in years! The book does not come with a new concept for the climate disaster that will make the world break, but it captures really well the world we already live in, just a few degrees worse. And that “small” difference will completely unravel the lives of those who struggle to make it today. Set in a near-future Margate, where the sea is rising and claiming the land, the poor are pushed out of London, given grants to relocate, and live in its periphery. There is a new way for the elite to “clean” the cities, by physically removing people who can’t afford to live there and they see as a burden. The government has abandoned its people and is prioritising the survival of the wealthy. The novel is brutal, such a poignant critical commentary on 2025. I loved it.
The story is told by Chance, a working-class teenager who has been relocated from London to Margate with her mother and brother. The relocation was part of an official “resettlement” scheme. Her family (Jas, her mother, and her brothers JD and later Blue) settles in Dreamland, a skyscraper in a crumbling seaside town riddled with poverty, drugs, and the consequences of global warming and rising sea levels. Chance grows up scavenging, surviving, and using drugs as a casual family activity ( didn’t get which type of drug they were cooking and using, it might have been cocaine or heroin). Eating is a luxury, as it happens sporadically when one of them runs into either money or food (for Chance, “running into” means finding food in the abandoned houses she breaks into).
Her life changes when she meets Franky, a middle-class volunteer from London, sent to Margate to collect data about the inhabitants for a relocation plan run by a charming and up-and-coming politician. Their relationship is tender and dangerous, set against a decaying society (both physically and morally). They are also on different sides of the fence - Franky represents the rich Londoners, while Chance is a poor kid from the periphery abandoned to the elements. As the book progresses, the world is getting warmer, the water is rising, and the government makes dubious decisions to save its citizens.
One of the decisions is Localisation: forcing each city to care for itself from its own revenue. This was led by the rich from London, who felt that they carried the whole country on their back with their wealth. Of course, Margate has very little income (with no industry, no economic focus, and a population made of people who couldn’t find a place anywhere else). Their actions worsen as we progress, mirroring the current upper class and the privileges they fight hard to maintain for themselves.
This is why Dreamland doesn’t feel speculative, it just tells our reality as is, with the added stress that climate disaster brings. Or how it will be in a few years. Perhaps this is why it resonated so much with me and why it is also dark and oppressive at times. Rankin-Gee writes about climate change, gentrification, and state violence with clarity and urgency. The novel criticises the UK’s housing crisis, the displacement of working-class families, and the rise of populist politics. The setting is very fitting as a backdrop: a flooded Margate where the sea brings sand and debris into the streets, and the government’s solution is to cater to the rich.
Not to forget: Rankin-Gee’s writing is gorgeous, lyrical, evocative, and filled with emotion. She captures so well the desolation of a decaying seaside town with incredible imagery, and the world-building is perfect. Moreover, her depiction of Chance’s inner world is intimate and profound, matching the outside world. Chance is a pragmatic realist, and she is not there to give the reader hope; on the contrary. You will feel her desperation and pain as she struggles to survive when all the stakes are set against her.
Finally, Dreamland is a must-read for anyone passionate about ecofiction and dystopian fiction that mirrors our current world issues well. I also recommend it for readers of literary fiction, as the writing, character development, world-building and social commentary are excellent.
The story is told by Chance, a working-class teenager who has been relocated from London to Margate with her mother and brother. The relocation was part of an official “resettlement” scheme. Her family (Jas, her mother, and her brothers JD and later Blue) settles in Dreamland, a skyscraper in a crumbling seaside town riddled with poverty, drugs, and the consequences of global warming and rising sea levels. Chance grows up scavenging, surviving, and using drugs as a casual family activity ( didn’t get which type of drug they were cooking and using, it might have been cocaine or heroin). Eating is a luxury, as it happens sporadically when one of them runs into either money or food (for Chance, “running into” means finding food in the abandoned houses she breaks into).
Her life changes when she meets Franky, a middle-class volunteer from London, sent to Margate to collect data about the inhabitants for a relocation plan run by a charming and up-and-coming politician. Their relationship is tender and dangerous, set against a decaying society (both physically and morally). They are also on different sides of the fence - Franky represents the rich Londoners, while Chance is a poor kid from the periphery abandoned to the elements. As the book progresses, the world is getting warmer, the water is rising, and the government makes dubious decisions to save its citizens.
One of the decisions is Localisation: forcing each city to care for itself from its own revenue. This was led by the rich from London, who felt that they carried the whole country on their back with their wealth. Of course, Margate has very little income (with no industry, no economic focus, and a population made of people who couldn’t find a place anywhere else). Their actions worsen as we progress, mirroring the current upper class and the privileges they fight hard to maintain for themselves.
This is why Dreamland doesn’t feel speculative, it just tells our reality as is, with the added stress that climate disaster brings. Or how it will be in a few years. Perhaps this is why it resonated so much with me and why it is also dark and oppressive at times. Rankin-Gee writes about climate change, gentrification, and state violence with clarity and urgency. The novel criticises the UK’s housing crisis, the displacement of working-class families, and the rise of populist politics. The setting is very fitting as a backdrop: a flooded Margate where the sea brings sand and debris into the streets, and the government’s solution is to cater to the rich.
Not to forget: Rankin-Gee’s writing is gorgeous, lyrical, evocative, and filled with emotion. She captures so well the desolation of a decaying seaside town with incredible imagery, and the world-building is perfect. Moreover, her depiction of Chance’s inner world is intimate and profound, matching the outside world. Chance is a pragmatic realist, and she is not there to give the reader hope; on the contrary. You will feel her desperation and pain as she struggles to survive when all the stakes are set against her.
Finally, Dreamland is a must-read for anyone passionate about ecofiction and dystopian fiction that mirrors our current world issues well. I also recommend it for readers of literary fiction, as the writing, character development, world-building and social commentary are excellent.
July 20, 2023
This is the most distressing thing I’ve ever read!
February 11, 2025
This was deeply extestential and a little depressing. Quite enjoyed
September 9, 2025
not for me at all, tried to DNF after 100 pages but found the audio book so gave that a listen but was still not feeling it, finished it in x2 speed and didn’t have a clue what was going on
December 27, 2021
One of the best dystopian fiction books I've read in a long time. Eye-opening, brilliantly written and a really moving story of beautiful relationships against a starkly apocolyptic backdrop that feels all too familiar.
June 7, 2021
Oh. My. God. I've just finished this book and immediately want to read it again. I couldn't put it down, yet wanted to read it slowly to make it last.
Its heartbreaking, tender, captivating, bleak yet hopeful, and full of twists I did not see coming yet knew there would be, like a strong undercurrent.
I'm not going to spoil the story, but will just say you HAVE to read this. It will change you.
Its heartbreaking, tender, captivating, bleak yet hopeful, and full of twists I did not see coming yet knew there would be, like a strong undercurrent.
I'm not going to spoil the story, but will just say you HAVE to read this. It will change you.
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