“The desert . . . . it’ll devour you whole if you display any sign of weakness.”
Author: Katya De Becerra
While I was reading Oasis, Trav and I were housebound by the Snowcrete, so a book set in a lovely hot desert with supernatural overtones sounded like the perfect way to break the ice and free me to adventure, if only in my mind. It starts, as these things inevitably do, with a band of young friends, freshly graduated from high school and looking for their last hurrah before going off to separate colleges.
Alif is our main character. Her father runs the archeological dig right outside the bustling center of Dubai. Alfi’s friends follow her invitation, soon learning that the high life in the city isn’t a part of their vacation. Their vacation is sorting fossils and doing kitchen work. Still . . . it’s a cool desert experience and their last time together. But already there are fractures in the group. Loves found and lost. Animosities bursting into light. Then . . .there’s the sandstorm.
The friends wake up, stranded in the desert, dying, unprepared. They find an oasis filled with strange fruits and glistening clean water. The oasis is no mirage. It is far too real, and it wants something – a sacrifice – in return for its benefice.
Oasis starts strong. I’m in a far-flung places/traveling kind of mood, so a supposedly cursed archeological dig in the desert was just what the doctor ordered. I instantly fell in love with the piercing sun and shifting sands. I also enjoyed the typical banter between the friends who were more frenemies than actual besties. It’s all so typical of this type of story, but it was well done and exactly what my mood demanded.
Once the desert turns feral and the friends find themselves (plus one hot research assistant) stranded far away from any sign of life, the creepy factor starts to rise. We can feel the beating sun, the thirst, the reddened skin bursting with blisters. And then – the beauty and ultimate sinisterness of the oasis itself. Here, every fruit grows. Fruits that are not native to the region, fruits that shouldn’t be here, that shouldn’t be growing together. And then, around the water and fruits, there are thickets of vegetation, all with malingering dark shadows. Something lies in wait here. The dreams begin, and the characters’ internal tensions mount. This is a test, a test to appease something. But is the price worth the reward?
The story remains strong as the characters discover the secrets of the oasis and then return to normal life, only to be continually called by the alien need they encountered. Where the story loses force and poignancy is towards the end, where everything speeds up when it should slow down, savoring the dissension, the disillusion, the falling apart, the surreal weirdness of it all.
And the conclusion itself leaves far too many questions. It’s sloppy and fast – pitted with plot holes and unanswered questions. And then, we get a twist, one that doesn’t make sense based on the actions of the characters, one that is trying to leave everything all creepy and open ended but instead just leaves readers flummoxed (what did THAT all mean then?) instead of falling into the desert dream of it all.
I was so in love with the first three fourths of this book. It was everything I wanted to the extent that I was willing to ignore the bits that sped by too fast, which were unearned or obvious. But then the last fourth of the book goes by in a blur, bouncing over the mystery and the revelation and destroying the entire shimmering mirage. I still kind of recommend Oasis because it is a quick read and I had fun with it; just know that the ending is a major letdown.
– Frances Carden
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