The Annual Migration of Clouds by Premee Mohamed

Last year, when I reviewed Beneath the Rising by Premee Mohamed, I said “After reading this book, I will definitely pick up the next book by Premee Mohamed.  This author has a great deal of potential and I look forward to seeing what else she writes.”  When NetGalley listed this new novella by Ms. Mohamed, I was happy to check it out, and I’m glad I did.  The Annual Migration of Clouds is much more polished and better written than her debut novel.  This is a post-apocalyptic novella, set at a repurposed university where survivors are ekeing out an existence, where many people are infected with a parasite of some sort that changes their behavior to push self-preservation.  The protagonist is offered acceptance into a college far away that her mother argues does not exist.  The author captures the mood of this world perfectly, even if she doesn’t quite put forth enough worldbuilding to  fully justify how it could exist in its current format.  Like in her first novel, the character work and evocative descriptions are standouts.