After losing both parents to a flu pandemic that seriously threatens his own life as well, thirteen-year-old Cole Vining is sent to live with an evangelical pastor and his wife in Salvation City, a small town in southern Indiana. There, Cole feels sheltered and loved but never as if he truly belongs. Everything about his new home is vastly different from the secular world in which he was raised. As he tries to adjust, he struggles also with memories of the past, a struggle made more difficult by the fact that he had lost his parents at a time when family relations were at their most fraught and unhappy. How is he to remember them now? Are they still his parents if they are no longer there? Must he accept what those around him believe, that because his parents did not know Jesus they are condemned to hell? During this time, Cole finds solace in drawing comics, for which he has a remarkable gift, and in fantasies about being a superhero. Salvation City is a story of love, betrayal, and forgiveness. It is about spiritual and moral growth, and the consolation of art. It is about belief—belief in God and belief in self. As others around him grow increasingly fixated on the hope of salvation and a new life to come through an imminent rapture, Cole imagines a different future, one in which his own dreams of happiness and heroism begin to seem within reach.
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The great success of Nunez's book is that the end of the world is filtered through Cole's imperfect perspective, so that the collapse of society is no more devastating than first love, and deeply felt conflict rages as a young man tries to find something worth preserving in a place determined to obliterate the past. — Publishers Weekly
The great success of Nunez's book is that the end of the world is filtered through Cole's imperfect perspective, so that the collapse of society is no more devastating than first love, and deeply felt conflict rages as a young man tries to find something worth preserving in a place determined to obliterate the past.
"Salvation City is not only timely and thought-provoking but also generous in its understanding of human nature. When apocalypse comes, I want Nunez in my lifeboat.”
“With a cool, evenhanded tone, Nunez conjures a near future dark around the edges.”
“Nunez’s writing is gorgeously spare, and she gets the life and the lingo of a teenage boy just right…In this gorgeously strange and apocalyptic coming-of-age novel, Nunez shows that the end of the world can offer a powerful possibility for a new beginning.”
" Meh. I was finding this really compelling until it crashed to a halt in the last couple of pages. "
" I wish I could give this book 2.5 stars. I didn't dislike it, but I didn't like it. It basically didn't make an impact on me at all. "
" What was this book even about? "
" Coming-of-age novel that raises a lot of important theological questions only to abandon them unanswered. "
" Way too much cussing for me:( Could not handle it had to put it down:( "
" This was an interesting and poignant book. The world doesn't really end, but a flu pandemic sets the stage for the action. The ending was a little fizzled in my opinion, but I enjoyed the story nonetheless. "
" It was good, interesting....but I didn't care much for the ending. "
Sigrid Nunez is the author of A Feather on the Breath of God and Naked Sleeper. She has been the recipient of several literary awards, including a Whiting Writer’s Award. She has taught at Amherst College, Smith College, Columbia University and the New School, and has been a visiting writer or writer in residence at Washington University, Baruch College, Vassar College, Boston University, and the University of California, Irvine, among others.
Stephen Hoye has worked as a professional actor in London and Los Angeles for more than thirty years. Trained at Boston University and the Guildhall in London, he has acted in television series and six feature films and has appeared in London’s West End. His audiobook narration has won him fifteen AudioFile Earphones Awards.
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