Review: The Annual Migration Of Clouds

Reading Time: 4 Mins.

I had been planning yesterday’s day trip for a while and knew that the visits to friends and family I haven’t seen in a long time – including a new baby girl in the family I hadn’t met yet – would be amazing, the eight hour drive time in the car was daunting.

I enjoy podcasts but for a trip of this length I knew I might need to look at something longer form. I’m a very visual person and the few times I’ve tried to listen to an audiobook, I’ve gotten lost in the plot or distracted by other things. Still, I thought I’d give it a try with some podcasts downloaded as a backup.

They were not needed.

I downloaded The Annual Migration Of Clouds by Premee Mohamed in the Libby app for the public library. The premise sounded interesting – “A novella set in post–climate disaster Alberta; a woman infected with a mysterious parasite must choose whether to pursue a rare opportunity far from home or stay and help rebuild her community” – it was available immediately and it was only 5 hours long. Such were my tick boxes.

I did not expect to be absolutely captivated by the world Mohamed has created and the people she has placed at its epicentre.

I love a story about basic human connection set within a world you have not ever even imagined yourself. Mohamed spins twin tales about a disease-ravaged planet and a girl, 19, Reid, facing the most important decision of her life: go her own way and seek out opportunity or put the others in her life first. The two tales are interwoven so delicately and intricately that the form of the novella itself could represent Cad, the disease that has taken over humanity, a fungal parasite that both keeps us alive and kills us at the same time.

The answers to the natural questions you as the reader have about what is happening in the world Mohamed has built are paced perfectly: just far enough apart to hold your anticipation with backstory dropped in when absolutely needed in a very satisfying manner. You are never far away from an answer, but you’re just far enough away to ask the question to yourself a second time. It is an excellently paced and well plotted drama.

But it is the characters who make you care; the characters and they’re all-too-real interactions with each other and emotions that make you relate to what is otherwise an unrelatable world. The love, guilt, jealousy, hurt, care and empathy of the characters are all given centre stage to what, in lesser hands, could have been a story more focused on the science-fiction-fantastical elements of the world around them.

Narrated brilliantly by Eva Tavares, my first full audiobook experience was made all the richer by the warmth she gave to all of the voices in the book and especially the personality she breathed into Reid. Mohamed’s prose is not overshadowed and I found myself marveling at her turn of phrase and word choice a number of times throughout. I can highly recommend the audiobook version but know I would have enjoyed the print version just as much.

One could call this a small story that takes place in a big world but ultimately this is a story of survival, not just of humanity but of the individual, and there is no bigger story than that. And maybe even survival is not the exact right word…

Preservation. How do we hold onto the things we knew and keep them with us as we grow and move forward? How do we find space for what was inside of what is?

Big questions and, through Reid, her friends, her community and her mother, we are captivated by their attempts to answer them.

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The Annual Migration Of Clouds

Premee Mohamed

Audiobook narrated by Eva Tavares

One Word Blog Rating: 5 Stars

Amazon Review: Submitted – 5 Stars

Amazon Link: Click here for other reviews, a full description and sample 
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Author Website: premeemohamed.com

Further Support: I have also just purchased Beneath The Rising and A Broken Darkness and I am looking forward to diving into an entirely new Premee Mohamed world.