Thirst — Michael Carson

In the year 2045, climate change is killing people. Fifteen-year old Lily Star must use her power over water to save her family and thousands of refugees in the parched, superheated American West.

She's a powerful Diviner who can call water from from deep underground at Everspring, the family's only source. The Star family must ration every drop to stay alive. Ash from forest fires falls like snow, relentlessly blowing sand and dust are a fact of life, and millions of Floaters, driven out of their homes by flooding coastlines, drift inland looking for food, water, and new homes, which are in desperately short supply.

The United States has split into two unfriendly factions, the United Western Republic and the Eastern Alliance. When the Republic's Minister of Water, Tanner Voles, discovers that Lily has the power that he's been seeking, he pressures her to use it for his own political gain and the benefit of the water-hungry capitol, Aquion. But Lily and her family refuse, suspecting that Voles, a notoriously self-serving man, will use her to get the water for the Republic and then kill her so nobody else can use her power. To gain control over her, he sends the family to Floater Camp 65, a broiling wasteland filled with thousands of Floaters. There Lily befriends Nate Arnett and the group 1Planet, an underground resistance group of kids who fight the government and give their generation hope for the future.

Along the way, Lily's belief in herself will be sorely tested, her like of Nate Arnett will turn to love, and she will be wracked with grief and guilt over the violence she leaves in her wake. Ultimately, she will come to believe that she can change the planet, at least her small slice of it.