Deteriorating climate not so much as a backdrop, but as a lingering, intensifying process that starts off as a bunch of anomalies and ends with California resembling Saudi-Arabia, killing a lot of bugs and affecting a lot of people as it goes.
But the focus is telling the stories of the members of one family as this process steps it up a notch, predicting, not accepting, trying to adapt to - or ignore - the changes. In the end, it doesn't even matter, as it is all too late anyway.
Oddly, the book ends on a note of optimism and hopefulness - that seems to come from nowhere, really. I guess it makes sense, since "Blue Skies" is, despite its insights and good research, not an analysis on real climate change, but a work of fiction. Probably the hope is meant as purely fictional too.
Very nicely done: Splitting the plot between Miami and California as settings for very different characters as well as weather phenomena.

Only a really good author could make me really like this book about some of the most self-centered, shallow, unlikeable people. The opening chapter has a young woman buying a python so she can wear "like jewelry" around her shoulders. She is engaged to a representative for a rum company. They live on the beach in Florida. Her mother and brother still live in California where it is so hot and never rains. The brother is an insect expert who is very fearful of the future of the earth.

The characters drink a lot of wine, think they are doing their part to help the world (such as by eating insects) but they are actually so removed from any kind of real awareness of the needs of others.

Cat, the young woman, becomes pregnant, she and her fiancee marry and have twins. One of the most horrifying scenes in the book involves the snake and one of the twins.

The chapters are short, the writing is excellent, and the story pulled me in. ( )

This one meandered a bit more than many of his books, but not much more so than the ones that don't have a driving plot or goal. It's a sermon baked into a slice-of-life type of book and it was easy to see where things would go when babies are introduced into a very large snake's environment. What I didn't understand was why charges were dropped. I expected it to be in order to not have an acquittal or mistrial so they could charge her again with more evidence to bring a conviction, but no further action was taken. Weird. Not weird was Todd's running away. In a book full of basically idiots and assholes, he was the worst. ( )

Good, but not great. If Carl Hiaasen and Tom Wolfe had a baby in novel form. There is a levity and absurdty to the characters and events that make it easily digestible, and Boyle is able to create a viable look at intensified climate change and how it changes the course and patterns of daily life. It is satisfying, but not memorable. ( )

This one looks at climate change. I was pretty bogged down reading this and Demon Copperhead at the same time. I had trouble relating to Cat. But it was interesting to see through the eyes of someone so different from myself. Some things I could see coming a mile away. Too bad the characters didn't. This one didn't hook me in the way that Tortilla Curtain did. But it was a good read and important material to get out there. I hope this format will make it more accessible to everyone. Good narrator. ( )