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Unsheltered
As the resourceful, relentless Li tracks her lost daughter across a disintegrating country, the journey will test the limits of her trust, her hope and her love. Unsheltered will leave you wrung out and gasping.
Relentlessly propulsive and profoundly moving, Unsheltered taps into some of our worst fears and most implacable motivations, marking the emergence of a fully-formed and urgent literary voice.
Against a background of social breakdown and destructive weather, Unsheltered tells the story of a woman’s search for her daughter. Li never wanted to bring a child into a world like this but now that eight-year-old Matti is missing, she will stop at nothing to find her.
As she crosses the great barren country alone and on foot, living on what she can find and fuelled by visions of her daughter just out of sight ahead, Li will have every instinct tested. She knows the odds against her: an uncompromising landscape, an uncaring system, time running out, and the risks of any encounters on the road. But her own failings and uncertainty might be the greatest obstacle of all. Because even if she finds her, how can she hope to shield Matti from the future?
At times tender, at times terrifying, Unsheltered is an engrossing, unpredictable novel that keeps the reader in suspense all the way to the end. A brilliant feat of imagination that asks if our humanity is the only protection we have left, Unsheltered will affect you in ways a book hasn’t done in years.
Relentlessly propulsive and profoundly moving, Unsheltered taps into some of our worst fears and most implacable motivations, marking the emergence of a fully-formed and urgent literary voice.
Against a background of social breakdown and destructive weather, Unsheltered tells the story of a woman’s search for her daughter. Li never wanted to bring a child into a world like this but now that eight-year-old Matti is missing, she will stop at nothing to find her.
As she crosses the great barren country alone and on foot, living on what she can find and fuelled by visions of her daughter just out of sight ahead, Li will have every instinct tested. She knows the odds against her: an uncompromising landscape, an uncaring system, time running out, and the risks of any encounters on the road. But her own failings and uncertainty might be the greatest obstacle of all. Because even if she finds her, how can she hope to shield Matti from the future?
At times tender, at times terrifying, Unsheltered is an engrossing, unpredictable novel that keeps the reader in suspense all the way to the end. A brilliant feat of imagination that asks if our humanity is the only protection we have left, Unsheltered will affect you in ways a book hasn’t done in years.
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First published May 5, 2021
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About the author
Clare Moleta
2 books10 followersClare Moleta was raised on Whadjuk Noongar Country in Western Australia. Her fiction has been published in literary journals and broadcast on Radio New Zealand, and she has won awards for her travel writing. She has a Writing Diploma from RMIT University and an MA in Creative Writing from Te Herenga Waka | Victoria University of Wellington. She now lives in Poneke | Wellington, Aotearoa, where she was born. Unsheltered is her first novel.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 70 reviews
March 21, 2022
The debut novel by Aussie/New Zealand author Clare Moleta, Unsheltered, is set in a harsh, dystopian environment, and touches on quite a lot of themes. I struggled with it unfortunately, over four days, and didn’t enjoy it. I loved the premise, but almost immediately was confused as the book has no speech marks at all. He said, she said. I was unable to connect with the characters although I could understand Li’s love for her lost eight-year-old daughter, Mattie. A disappointing read which has varied ratings. Not for me I’m sorry to say.
September 16, 2021
All of the shiny gold stars for this great novel. It is a gripping vision of a waterless and desperately hot Australia. It is a sad and desperate story. A woman, searching for her daughter across the wasted land, struggling to find something to eat or to drink, friendless and aching with sadness that she uses to drive her forward to find her little girl.
Li is fascinating, as she navigates a trail trying to find her child, she wrangles bandits, rip off merchants, violent people and still she persists. Eventually she finds some help, in a camp a medic takes care of her wounds and looks out for her. And still she must leave and continue her quest. I loved Li, her grim determination, her antenna always out on the lookout for news of the tribe of kids she'd heard rumour of.
Ahhh the ending, which I shall not mention because it is too hard. I sat, stunned and couldn't believe it. It was beautifully done. Read it. Its great.
Li is fascinating, as she navigates a trail trying to find her child, she wrangles bandits, rip off merchants, violent people and still she persists. Eventually she finds some help, in a camp a medic takes care of her wounds and looks out for her. And still she must leave and continue her quest. I loved Li, her grim determination, her antenna always out on the lookout for news of the tribe of kids she'd heard rumour of.
Ahhh the ending, which I shall not mention because it is too hard. I sat, stunned and couldn't believe it. It was beautifully done. Read it. Its great.
June 17, 2021
Unsheltered by Clare Moleta
Set in a dystopian landscape, ravished by environmental catastrophes, ‘Unsheltered’ touches on many themes; climate change, refugees, government agencies, power, control, uncertainty, relationships, helplessness, vulnerability, bureaucracy, hope, and love.
The primary storyline revolves around a mother’s love for her daughter, and the impossible lengths she will endure (physically and mentally) to maintain this tenuous connection.
Unfortunately I didn’t enjoy this book. That’s not to say you shouldn’t read it, but more to do with the fact I could never really get into it. I struggled to develop any emotional connection to the characters. I also struggled with the lack of explanation into the different agencies at play - government, non-government, volunteer etc. A little more information on what role these departments, armies, organisations, played, and how they interacted with the various walled-in cities/zones would’ve been helpful in my view. Clare describes it a bit, but it left me feeling slightly confused.
I know some people will love this book, so don’t let me put you off too much. However, I was not one of them.
Set in a dystopian landscape, ravished by environmental catastrophes, ‘Unsheltered’ touches on many themes; climate change, refugees, government agencies, power, control, uncertainty, relationships, helplessness, vulnerability, bureaucracy, hope, and love.
The primary storyline revolves around a mother’s love for her daughter, and the impossible lengths she will endure (physically and mentally) to maintain this tenuous connection.
Unfortunately I didn’t enjoy this book. That’s not to say you shouldn’t read it, but more to do with the fact I could never really get into it. I struggled to develop any emotional connection to the characters. I also struggled with the lack of explanation into the different agencies at play - government, non-government, volunteer etc. A little more information on what role these departments, armies, organisations, played, and how they interacted with the various walled-in cities/zones would’ve been helpful in my view. Clare describes it a bit, but it left me feeling slightly confused.
I know some people will love this book, so don’t let me put you off too much. However, I was not one of them.
January 9, 2022
3.5-4*
December 5, 2024
Entirely gripping, pressing hard on a major worst-fear trigger, Unsheltered depicts an all too plausible dystopian landscape where a desperate mother finds herself separated from her young child. Weather, bureaucracy, status, factions, dehydration, starvation, containment camps, an endless slew of threats on the roads outside the walled havens of the legally sheltered - Li battles all of it in search of her child.
I was hooked from beginning to end, immersed in the hostility and beauty of the landscape, Li’s journey, the allies and enemies, and her fraught relationship with her missing child - this is drip fed in flashes of narrative moving back and forth along the timeline. The writing is beautiful, spare and powerful. What a tremendous debut for Clare Moleta.
I was hooked from beginning to end, immersed in the hostility and beauty of the landscape, Li’s journey, the allies and enemies, and her fraught relationship with her missing child - this is drip fed in flashes of narrative moving back and forth along the timeline. The writing is beautiful, spare and powerful. What a tremendous debut for Clare Moleta.
January 5, 2022
A book that hasn’t left my consciousness. What a masterpiece.
If you’re a sucker for some gritty, female-led, dystopian eco-fiction, this is the book for you.
As the book opens, we are faced with an adult couple who are giddy and playful in the rain. It sounds like a romcom, but bare with me here… a child runs toward them, sheltering themselves from it, terrified … and we soon realise that their child has never experienced the joy of rain in their lifetime. The scene is set, and the story unfolds from there - intense and deadly weather patterns, lack of food and resources, a physical separation/barrier between the rich and the poor of the nation, and a long trek in the wild.
To me, this is really the story of a mothers undying love, and her fight for survival, at any cost, to be with her child.
As I write this I’m racking my brain trying to remember if I saw this across social media at ALL last year?! It’s perhaps one of the most underrated and missed books of 2021. I implore you to pick this one up. I want to talk about it with people! Let me know if you do.
You will love this if you enjoyed: The Natural Way of Things, The Glad Shout, The Road, The Mother Fault.
If you’re a sucker for some gritty, female-led, dystopian eco-fiction, this is the book for you.
As the book opens, we are faced with an adult couple who are giddy and playful in the rain. It sounds like a romcom, but bare with me here… a child runs toward them, sheltering themselves from it, terrified … and we soon realise that their child has never experienced the joy of rain in their lifetime. The scene is set, and the story unfolds from there - intense and deadly weather patterns, lack of food and resources, a physical separation/barrier between the rich and the poor of the nation, and a long trek in the wild.
To me, this is really the story of a mothers undying love, and her fight for survival, at any cost, to be with her child.
As I write this I’m racking my brain trying to remember if I saw this across social media at ALL last year?! It’s perhaps one of the most underrated and missed books of 2021. I implore you to pick this one up. I want to talk about it with people! Let me know if you do.
You will love this if you enjoyed: The Natural Way of Things, The Glad Shout, The Road, The Mother Fault.
April 2, 2021
The Road, only better.
Climate change has wreaked unholy Mad Max havoc onto Australia's landscape, and those trapped on the wrong side of the Great Dividing Range are Unsheltered. Refugees, left to survive the Weather.
This is Li's story of being Unsheltered, her desperate trek across the country to find her daughter Matti after they are separated.
Obviously a commentary on the way we treat refugees in this country and the bleak future we have if we continue to do nothing to mitigate climate change, the journey is still profoundly moving and thought provoking. Once you get used to the writing style (reminiscent of The Road), with dialogue slotted in without any indication and stops and changes in the timeline following the protagonists train of thought, only then can you truly have your chest ripped open by the stark bleakness of this dystopian world.
Very well written. Great Australian fiction.
Climate change has wreaked unholy Mad Max havoc onto Australia's landscape, and those trapped on the wrong side of the Great Dividing Range are Unsheltered. Refugees, left to survive the Weather.
This is Li's story of being Unsheltered, her desperate trek across the country to find her daughter Matti after they are separated.
Obviously a commentary on the way we treat refugees in this country and the bleak future we have if we continue to do nothing to mitigate climate change, the journey is still profoundly moving and thought provoking. Once you get used to the writing style (reminiscent of The Road), with dialogue slotted in without any indication and stops and changes in the timeline following the protagonists train of thought, only then can you truly have your chest ripped open by the stark bleakness of this dystopian world.
Very well written. Great Australian fiction.
May 18, 2021
Stunning, gripping, beautifully told. I was with Li the whole way and couldn't stop turning the pages. My favourite dystopian novel since Station Eleven, and this one certainly is as good if not better. Wish I could buy the movie rights - someone certainly will. A complete, vividly rendered and terrifying world, but one I was happy to inhabit because Li is so compelling.
August 5, 2021
This was stunning - beautifully written, terrifying, tender, hopeful and desperate. I have no idea why people aren’t raving about it. If you’re a fan of realism in your dystopian fiction reads, this is the book for you.
November 4, 2021
This one wavered between a 3 and a 4. The novel definitely captured the essence of a parent who has lost their kid in an antagonistic Australia where both the environment and new human social structures act as formidable barriers in her quest across to try and find her daughter after they were separated during a raid by the 'authorities' on the makeshift camp they were staying at.
The environment, the people, the oppressive sense of the diverse threats faced by our protagonist are all vividly conveyed but it is also a disorientating book with time jumps and events felt but not clearly delineated or explained - emphasised with a first person stream of consciousness delivery is not my favourite form of writing style.
This piecemeal effect however does fit the novel very well and grounds it in the impacts and what it is like for the protagonist, negotiating this very geographically uncertain future world and at the mercy of an institutional power with no safeguards.
The environment, the people, the oppressive sense of the diverse threats faced by our protagonist are all vividly conveyed but it is also a disorientating book with time jumps and events felt but not clearly delineated or explained - emphasised with a first person stream of consciousness delivery is not my favourite form of writing style.
This piecemeal effect however does fit the novel very well and grounds it in the impacts and what it is like for the protagonist, negotiating this very geographically uncertain future world and at the mercy of an institutional power with no safeguards.
March 18, 2023
A fantastic book !! I love dystopia so much, although here really it is only a setting for a story about a mother searching for her lost child. The character study in this book is done so well and it will stick with me for a long time.
November 27, 2022
Up front, it was utterly impossible to avoid comparisons with McCarthy's THE ROAD right from the start of this novel, so I gave up trying not to. Dystopian in nature, thriller in intent, UNSHELTERED is yet another one of those novels that I suspect will spark widely different reactions, and opinions.
A bold noir undertaking, this is the story of a woman's search for her missing daughter. A daughter Li never really wanted in the first place, although now eight-year-old Matti is missing, all she wants is to get her back.
Set within the dual conflicts of climate and societal breakdown, the dystopian future outlined in this novel feels very real (possibly helped by living in a country besieged by fires and floods of epic proportions at the moment), so the concept that a society collapsing in on itself can become so ... well feral ... is a sobering prospect indeed. And this is possibly where UNSHELTERED is at its best. It's a gruelling, emotional journey, and readers will need to develop a very close and binding relationship with the characters in this novel, because the setting is so fraught, so confronting and so dire it could be too much for some.
It's also an incredibly raw, and reflective trawl through the best and worst of humanity, which will engage with readers prepared to do some work - no speech marks, sudden timeline switches and time spent closely inside the protagonists heads, all make for a challenging, and sometimes downright confusing and confronting read, all of which felt very much by design. UNSHELTERED demands that the reader go on Li's journey with her - through every move, thought, doubt and misstep. You have to feel her fear, joy, disquiet, hate, love and failure just as she feels it. You may have to work at surviving UNSHELTERED just like she did.
https://www.austcrimefiction.org/revi...
A bold noir undertaking, this is the story of a woman's search for her missing daughter. A daughter Li never really wanted in the first place, although now eight-year-old Matti is missing, all she wants is to get her back.
Set within the dual conflicts of climate and societal breakdown, the dystopian future outlined in this novel feels very real (possibly helped by living in a country besieged by fires and floods of epic proportions at the moment), so the concept that a society collapsing in on itself can become so ... well feral ... is a sobering prospect indeed. And this is possibly where UNSHELTERED is at its best. It's a gruelling, emotional journey, and readers will need to develop a very close and binding relationship with the characters in this novel, because the setting is so fraught, so confronting and so dire it could be too much for some.
It's also an incredibly raw, and reflective trawl through the best and worst of humanity, which will engage with readers prepared to do some work - no speech marks, sudden timeline switches and time spent closely inside the protagonists heads, all make for a challenging, and sometimes downright confusing and confronting read, all of which felt very much by design. UNSHELTERED demands that the reader go on Li's journey with her - through every move, thought, doubt and misstep. You have to feel her fear, joy, disquiet, hate, love and failure just as she feels it. You may have to work at surviving UNSHELTERED just like she did.
https://www.austcrimefiction.org/revi...
May 10, 2022
Loved this book. Properly compelling and heartbreaking - sad and desperate in places, but profoundly gripping as we follow Li's indefatigable search for her daughter while struggling to survive in a hostile environment and bureaucratic nightmare.
The dystopian setting of climate change-ravaged and refugee-filled Australia feels very real, and while it might seem as though it's set in the distant future, I was struck by the author's comments in a piece on The Spinoff: "There’s really nothing in the book that isn’t happening now: it’s just not happening to me yet."
Cannot recommend this book highly enough, although with the caveats that it's pretty distressing, the setting takes a bit of time to get used to, and the dialogue is written without speech marks (if that's something that bothers you).
The dystopian setting of climate change-ravaged and refugee-filled Australia feels very real, and while it might seem as though it's set in the distant future, I was struck by the author's comments in a piece on The Spinoff: "There’s really nothing in the book that isn’t happening now: it’s just not happening to me yet."
Cannot recommend this book highly enough, although with the caveats that it's pretty distressing, the setting takes a bit of time to get used to, and the dialogue is written without speech marks (if that's something that bothers you).
May 25, 2024
It took me a while to read this book, it was depressing at times and I put it aside and read other books, always intending to come back to it. So I finally did, and finished it today, with tears 😭 such a well told dystopian story that sucked me in so deep at times I just couldn’t keep reading. I was experiencing Li’s hopes and despairs, felt wondrous at her strength and resilience, and felt I was on the journey with her. So pleased I did finally finish it, what an amazing first novel!!
May 3, 2022
"All the memories came ripping - the flashes of her voice and face, her smell. And it stayed like that, day after day after day. It couldn't be lived with but Li was still alive."
I am broken. I can imagine this being our world in a few decades, and I'm terrified...
March 6, 2025
Nothing really happened until like.. 80%..?
October 7, 2021
Searing, moving and engrossing. Very powerful
May 24, 2022
An epic trek of woman against apocalypse. In a country run by the military, the company and Weather with a capital W, Li crosses a desert landscape, desperately looking for her little girl. Full of treachery, challenge...and survival tips. An excellent read longlisted for the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards 2022.
January 15, 2022
I wanted to like this more than I did but unfortunately the lack of exposition about the setting and the various players in power made it difficult to immerse myself in the world and understand how Li’s decisions are influenced. What is XB Force? What does it really mean if you’re Sheltered?
That said, the descriptions of the environment and the impacts of weather were impactful. The reality of the dystopia will stick with me.
That said, the descriptions of the environment and the impacts of weather were impactful. The reality of the dystopia will stick with me.
May 4, 2021
3.5 start
I feel I wanted desperately to like this book more than I did. Well written with definite The Road feels, however I just didn’t connect with the characters, or feel like I was moving through the story with then at all.
I feel I wanted desperately to like this book more than I did. Well written with definite The Road feels, however I just didn’t connect with the characters, or feel like I was moving through the story with then at all.
February 6, 2022
Oh my gosh this is a bleak book. Reminds me of The Road in a lot of ways. This is like looking into the looking glass of our future if we don’t actually tackle climate change now rather than just talk about it.
June 22, 2022
Took me a while to get into this book and understand the world it was set in, but once I was in, I was all in. And now I’ve finished, with a face covered in tears. A brilliant debut.
January 12, 2023
Set in the desolate future, in a land like Australia, but the conditions are extreme. Dry, water must be stilled, Weather can wipe out. Control is by a power, and the remaining people are divided into sheltered - those living inside the walls - and the Unsheltered, those on the outer, barely surviving.
Li and her daughter Mattie have found themselves in a camp, makecamp for unsheltered, but in one confusing moment they are separated. Li then sets out to find her, wherever she is.
Flipping back to times of Mattie's younger days, we learn of Li's struggles with being a parent, and now on her own, how very hard it's been wrestling a strong-minded pre-teen. Let alone the battle to stay safe, resourced and free.
More flashbacks fill us in on Li's own childhood, and her survival and parentlessness. But also about the people that have been there, helped, and meant something.
Often it's a foggy picture about this world, what's there, how it works, and what and who to trust. A lot of abandon in trying to grasp it, and more focus on Li and her fight to survive and get to her child.
Li is such a compelling character, in such a beyond tough world, you must travel along in her pack to see how it ends.
Li and her daughter Mattie have found themselves in a camp, makecamp for unsheltered, but in one confusing moment they are separated. Li then sets out to find her, wherever she is.
Flipping back to times of Mattie's younger days, we learn of Li's struggles with being a parent, and now on her own, how very hard it's been wrestling a strong-minded pre-teen. Let alone the battle to stay safe, resourced and free.
More flashbacks fill us in on Li's own childhood, and her survival and parentlessness. But also about the people that have been there, helped, and meant something.
Often it's a foggy picture about this world, what's there, how it works, and what and who to trust. A lot of abandon in trying to grasp it, and more focus on Li and her fight to survive and get to her child.
Li is such a compelling character, in such a beyond tough world, you must travel along in her pack to see how it ends.
August 25, 2022
I’m in the minority here but I didn’t enjoy this book. I re-read the blurb and I don’t know what initially enticed me to read this book? Was it a slip of the finger and it was added to my ‘To Read’ list by accident? I went one step further and booked it from the library but even then I queried what I saw in it?
My worst suspicions was confirmed as it was not the book for me. Would it be for others? I doubt it unfortunately and would hesitate to recommend.
Jumping timelines, no speech quotations also made this a difficult read.
The book follows Li as she tries to find her daughter in an Australian-like outback. Everyone is barely surviving as they are homeless and a small few seem to have the resources as the sheltered. On her own, she has to learn to accept others help and distinguish what news to believe and follow when trying to find her daughter.
My worst suspicions was confirmed as it was not the book for me. Would it be for others? I doubt it unfortunately and would hesitate to recommend.
Jumping timelines, no speech quotations also made this a difficult read.
The book follows Li as she tries to find her daughter in an Australian-like outback. Everyone is barely surviving as they are homeless and a small few seem to have the resources as the sheltered. On her own, she has to learn to accept others help and distinguish what news to believe and follow when trying to find her daughter.
December 24, 2023
A random choice from the local library, an enthusiastic recommendation on the front cover from an NZ author whose opinion I respect, and I'm glad I took it out. fThis is a dystopia story, set in a country that seems very like an Australia of the future. The people wander the country searching for shelter, food, registration to some nebulous arrangement which may be better; and in the midst of this frequently violent culture, a woman loses her child. Li is tough and accustomed to life on the road, but her daughter is young, had been taken away in a bus by some agency, and we follow Li on her unrelenting efforts to find her in very difficult circumstances.
This book held my attention to the end, and I was completely unaware of the absence of speech marks until I read a few other reviews. In fact I had to go back and check!
This book held my attention to the end, and I was completely unaware of the absence of speech marks until I read a few other reviews. In fact I had to go back and check!
June 17, 2023
Reading this reminded me that the various apocalypse we fear over here in the more complacent parts of the world has already happened/is happening to someone, somewhere else and surely there's one waiting patiently for us as well. Appreciating post apocalyptic fiction on whatever level seems now a bit of a grotesque privilege only able to be enjoyed by people who don't really, really believe that anything too awful could happen to them. I mean I don't if I'm honest, not really - even though I understand the possibility, the stats don't apply to me, how could they possibly?
Anyway, I felt some sort of Judgement upon me while I was reading and thinking about this book and I'm passing it on.
Anyway, I felt some sort of Judgement upon me while I was reading and thinking about this book and I'm passing it on.
November 27, 2021
Other people will tell you about the plot. I want to just warn you that the narrative is not linear but you get used to it quickly. It was such a good read. And, a great ending. It's exactly what I tell my students to consider when they are working toward their protagonist's 'object of desire' - the character MUST be presented with it at the end (they must also have earned it) but that they are changed (or we are - or we all are) as a result of the experiences of overcoming the obstacle(s) to get that object of desire (goal).
The writing is great. As a reader, you just ARE in the head/world of Li.
The writing is great. As a reader, you just ARE in the head/world of Li.
January 8, 2023
This novel is set in a place ravaged by climate change where people are displaced from their homes, no longer inhabitable. On the other side, are the people living inside, sheltered from weather events, living a better life. This novel seems like a possible near future in a very unsettling way. I enjoyed reading it, however the narrator jumps from a timeline to another quite often. I don't know if it is because if how the digital version is formatted, but I found it difficult to keep track of the different timelines and which paragraph was progressing which story. Other than that, it was an interesting read
March 17, 2022
I was not expecting to get so invested in this book! I haven’t read any dystopian books since high school, it was fun to read something so different for a change. It was kind of annoying not knowing why there was a war or what the war really was or anything really?? Just the journey and strength of a mother I guess? But she also gives up a one point? Confusing but I loved it. An absolutely brutal cliff hanger ending. I think I would choose to give my child to my brother inside the wall? But also I would hound my brother for answers about what life actually is like in there.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 18, 2021
This one had an "American Dirt" feel for me, with a story of a mother's relentless drive to be reunited with her daughter. A refugee story - a tale of a tough and harsh landscape / geography, an uncaring system that does not serve refugees well, and the fight to survive the obstacles thrown in her way. Li will suffer anything to find the daughter a harsh fire at a refugee camp resulted in her being separated from.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 70 reviews