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by Alice Dawson (Author)
In a world where the soil has turned against its keepers, seventeen-year-old Riku tends the last living cherry trees on Earth. They're all that remain of his grandfather's farm-and of the world that used to be. Each morning he waters them by hand, hoping the ground will forgive them both. When a desperate stranger named Rafa appears at the edge of his land, their uneasy alliance sets them on a journey across the dying American West in search of a place where life might begin again.
Haunted by loss and bound by a fragile hope, Riku and Rafa face what's left of civilization-ruined cities swallowed by sand, fractured governments, and the Unity regime that will do anything to control what still grows. Joined by Kai, a quick-witted tinkerer with more heart than caution, the trio must navigate wastelands where silence is safer than kindness and trust can be the most dangerous gamble of all. Yet, between violence and ruin, they find something unexpected: connection, resilience, and the quiet defiance of choosing care in a world built on control.
Told with lyrical prose and cinematic intensity, The Last Cherry Orchard is a post-collapse love story about what survives when everything else fades-memory, trust, and the stubborn beauty of life itself. It's about planting hope where none should grow, about found family, and about the courage to keep tending something fragile even when the world says it's already lost.
For readers of Emily St. John Mandel, Neal Shusterman, and The Giver, this tender, hopeful novel asks one timeless question:
When the world ends, what do you keep alive?
