Vera lives in a world where everyone is perpetually thirsty and perpetually at war. The United States has been broken up into a number of smaller countries in the wake of the "Great Panic," and it is expected that, when they finish school, all boys will go into the army. Canada is the bad guy in this scenario, having committed environmental atrocities and blocked access to fresh water to areas south of it, including Illinowa, where Vera and her brother Will live. Then Vera meets Kai, a boy who seems to always have enough water to drink. He promises her that one day he will show her a secret river. But before he can make good on his promise, he disappears. When the siblings visit Kai's home and find his bodyguard murdered, Vera and her brother feel desperate to find Kai both for his own sake and for the hope of water.

On pedicycles, the two set off into a landscape filled with pirates, slavers, and corruption. Though the focus is on the dystopian ideas and the world building, there's enough action in THE WATER WARS to keep even reluctant readers turning pages. The siblings are captured by, and subsequently escape from, a number of factions, often involving a speedy getaway and a burst of gunplay.

Stracher, who is also a journalist and law professor, presents a world that sounds just a little familiar to our own in the most frightening ways, with manufactured near- food (seemingly based on soy) and (one must assume genetically modified) "synth-fruit and quasi-vocados" being the foods the masses can afford to buy. This brings home Stracher's message that water is the most precious resource, because without it, no one can grow crops or raise livestock.

Make sure that when you sit down to read this one, that you have a good supply of water nearby. It could make you a little thirsty.