TRASHLANDS

A trash scavenger and a strip club dancer form an alliance of necessity in a post-apocalyptic junkyard.

Trashlands is both a massive garbage dump where Coral collects plastic—which has replaced cash as currency—and a strip club where Foxy performs on stage and sells tattoos to men whose names are inked on her body. Coral's plastic makes its way to Dickensian factories where enslaved children remanufacture it into bricks, which are used to replace buildings damaged by severe sea-level rise and flooding. One of the workers is Coral's moody son, Shanghai, whom she's desperate to locate and buy out of the factory. Trashlands' proprietor, Rattlesnake Master, operates the place as a predatory company store and is determined to showcase Coral on his stage. Recollections of how Coral and others came to be trapped in Trashlands are interwoven with episodes of their challenging day-to-day lives. A love match between Mr. Fall, Coral's father figure, and Summer, a club dancer who lives in a food truck, provides a mature perspective. Coincidental meetings, a random act of violence, and unresolved plot points make the ending less satisfying than the rest of Stine's engrossing story.

A nicely balanced blend of dystopian tragedy, love, and hope.