Like many authors, Lily Braun-Arnold spent the pandemic writing a book. Unlike most, though, Braun-Arnold was only 17 years old. Now a junior at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, she’s celebrating the publication of her Kirkus-starred debut, The Last Bookstore on Earth (Delacorte, Jan. 7), a queer enemies-to-lovers romance about two young women struggling to survive a climate-related apocalypse while protecting the ruins of a beloved community bookstore. The fast-paced tale asks compelling questions about who we become when faced with disaster, and what we are willing to do to protect ourselves and the people and places we love.

Over a video call, Braun-Arnold and I spoke about optimism, oppression, the ups and downs of editing a book while still a college student, and the unexpected societal freedom that could accompany the end of the world. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

Why did you decide to set this novel in a post-apocalyptic world?

It’s my comfort genre. You have these characters who are in the worst possible situation. Everything has ended around them. They are deprived of whatever it was that used to bring them joy. Yet they continue to persevere. I find any sort of light at the end of the tunnel that they’re inhabiting very inspiring.

That is such an optimistic way to think about the end of the world!

I wrote this book in about two weeks when I was 17. I was graduating from high school and looking out on what life after adolescence was going to be. When emerging into this new phase of my life, I wanted optimism to be the energy that I carried with me.

Literature often argues that there is an inherent evil inside us all. I’m thinking of Lord of the Flies, which says that when people are left to their own devices, they will do violent things. And that’s not a new sentiment: Plato believed that if we could be invisible, we would do bad things, because no one would hold us accountable for them. This book came from me wanting the truth to be that people might choose to do bad things but aren’t inherently bad.

I’m not sure I align with that anymore. My first draft ended with the bookstore burning down and this community effort at rebuilding. That starry-eyed optimism—that’s something that’s definitely shifted.

Wow, you were only 17! Was this your first book, then?

This is my third book. The other two were horrible and should never see the light of day, but they were important steppingstones for me to figure out what I wanted to write about and how I wanted to write it. They were both apocalyptic and danced around themes I explored in The Last Bookstore. I just couldn’t figure out the piece that was missing. It turned out the piece was the bookstore!

Why do you think the bookstore was the missing piece?

It gave the main character, Liz, a purpose. The other drafts that I wrote had a meandering plot where these people were surviving because that’s what they were supposed to do. Like, Liz was surviving because it was the only thing she could think of to do in the moment. When you’re presented with crazy circumstances, you just sort of move on the best you can in whatever capacity that is for you. Having the bookstore as a place to go back to—whether it was something she recognized as a purpose or not, at least it helped her want to keep fighting.

Also, the bookstore acted as a glue that bound the whole thing together. There’s a certain level of escapism and hopefulness inherent within bookstores. But then also, at the bookstore where I work, we have regulars. You know them, and you know about their lives, and they know about you. Like, when I left for college, people were giving me cards and graduation presents, because they knew me. That sense of community works really well for an apocalyptic setting.

The bookstore in this novel is also the site of a romance between the two main characters. Can you tell us a little bit about why you included a post-apocalyptic romance and, in particular, a queer one?

When there are so few people, they tend to really bond. They hold on to what they have. The romance felt like a natural progression.

Plus, this book has a unique setting. There isn’t a society to abide by. When the societal aspect is removed, and the world has literally ended, homophobia is not the biggest concern. This creates a really wonderful opportunity for a queer romance without the framework of how are people going to accept me?

As a queer person, and the kid of two dads, I love queer representation and think there should be more of it. This was me doing my part to add to the existing canon of queer literature.

In your book, the apocalypse was a weather event the characters call The Storm. Why did you choose climate change as the force that ended the world?

When I was planning this book, I thought, what is the most realistic way that this apocalypse could come to pass? Unfortunately, in my mind, that is climate change. I think it is one of the biggest threats, if not the biggest, to humanity as a whole right now, and something that absolutely has the capacity to cause immense, large-scale destruction.

At the time—my senior year of high school—I was in an environmental science class. The beginning of the idea for the storm came from that class. Then, from there, I read a lot of peer-reviewed articles on JSTOR just to see what I could build on. I chose acid rain as the apocalyptic event, but I embellished it. Acid rain will do things to flora and fauna more than people. It cannot eat through human skin, like it does in the book.

What was it like to edit a book while in college?

It’s definitely…interesting. It’s all about finding time. Normally, for me, that’s between 9 p.m. and 1 a.m. There are moments where I’m like, Oh, I have three essays due, and also I should probably work on that thing for my editor, but I sort of muscle through it the best I can. It’s probably easier than doing it at any other point in your life, though? Like with a full-time job?

Do you see writing as your future full-time job?

I’m not sure how long I’m going to write books. I get my inspiration from personal experiences. I like to take feelings or ideas and move them into the framework of a story that will allow them to be explored. I started writing about the apocalypse during Covid. Is that a coincidence? Probably not. Now, I go to a historically women’s college in this current, modern era, and I have something to say about that experience. So, I’m working on inklings about that.

I think I’ll write books until I feel like I don’t have any more stories to tell. I only want to write as long as I have something to say.

Mathangi Subramanian is a novelist, essayist, and founder of Moon Rabbit Writing Studio.