Sarah O'Connor

I received this book from River Street Writing in exchange for an honest review.

“Charity is not a bone thrown to a hungry dog. Charity is a bone shared with a dog when you are both hungry. And loneliness is a kind of hunger,” (Welch 242).

After an earthquake shakes the Pacific Coast of North America, animals and people are now able to understand each other, and Del Samara is struggling. After her family’s home is destroyed by a fire and struggling with addiction herself, Del leaves her children and lives in her father’s fishing cabin with her dog Manx for three years before returning to the world and finding the world has changed in ways she didn’t expect before her isolation.

The marketing for Ladder To Heaven has been fantastic. I’ve seen this book everywhere on my Instagram so when I was given the chance to review this book I eagerly requested to read it. A dystopian book where people and animals can now communicate with one another? Sign me up! Unfortunately, this book was a huge disappointment.

You’d think when the summary mentions people and animals talking to each other it would be incredibly relevant to the plot, right? Unfortunately this is not the case in Welch’s new book. Yes, people and animals can now understand each other, but it is treated with a sort of  nonchalant amusement. No one in the book treats any of the animals that show up any different than they were before they could be understand, and none of the animals even have their own voice in the novel. We get passing dialogue or thoughts of what they are saying, but considering Del’s dog Manx is mentioned in the summary I thought there would be some bond and conversation between them (SPOILER alert: the dog dies of old age in this one, but he isn’t developed enough for anyone to care).

The only reason animals and humans can understand each other in this world is because Welch needed some way for her isolated protagonist to tell her story, so she does so to two seals. But guess what, it isn’t even that humans and animals can understand each other, people who speak different languages can also now understand each other. There is a whole character not mentioned in the summary named Cheng who ends up being a pretty big part of the novel and a listener to Del’s story, not to mention that the Juan de Fuca Plate gets it’s own perspective as it shifts which causes the earthquake. Why have animals and human be able to understand each other if it isn’t actually relevant to the plot?

Del is also an incredibly frustrating character to follow. I think Welch offers a realistic look at addiction which as a reader can be hard to see Del make bad decision after bad decision, favouring her addiction over her children and then having to see the trauma her children face because of her choices. It’s hard to have sympathy for Del, but I do commend Welch’s choice for having a character struggle with addiction in a dystopic world. I’ve never read a book in that genre that’s explored that.

But is Ladder to Heaven even a dystopia? It is on the Pacific Coast, but what about the rest of Canada? Can people only understand animals and each other there or is this a world wide change? We don’t know, and we don’t find out.

I do like the theme of survival present throughout and the community that is formed between characters through this dystopic event. I had the same feeling I did when I read Station Eleven, and I wish Welch had explored that feeling more. Unfortunately Ladder To Heaven left me disappointed and wanting more, especially when it had such a cool concept to begin with.

Publication: October 14 2025
Publisher: Buckrider Books
Pages: 304 pages (Paperback)
Source: River Street Writing
Genre: Fiction, Dystopian, Canadian
My Rating: ⛤⛤.5
Summary:

In 2045 an earthquake ravages the Pacific Coast of North America and the world shifts. Suddenly people and animals can understand each other, while the chaos of climate change combines with the destruction of the earthquake in terrifying ways. Inland, where she should be safe, Del Samara finds her life spiralling out of control. Struggling with addiction and with her ranch in ashes around her, Del decides her family would be better off without her. Leaving her daughters behind, she retreats to her father’s fishing cabin with her dog, Manx. When she emerges three years later, she finds the world since the earthquake has become a very different place and she begins a dangerous journey to Vancouver Island to find her family and, perhaps, find peace.