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NATIONAL BESTSELLER • Co-founder of the Women's March Paola Mendoza and award-winning writer Abby Sher’s timely, haunting near-future dystopian where a young girl and her brother must escape a xenophobic government to find sanctuary.
It's 2032, and in this near-future America, all citizens are chipped and everyone is tracked--from buses to grocery stores. It's almost impossible to survive as an undocumented immigrant, but that's exactly what sixteen-year-old Vali is doing. She and her family have carved out a stable, happy life in small-town Vermont, but when Vali's mother's counterfeit chip starts malfunctioning and the Deportation Forces raid their town, they are forced to flee.
Now on the run, Vali and her family are desperately trying to make it to her tía Luna's in California, a sanctuary state that is currently being walled off from the rest of the country. But when Vali's mother is detained before their journey even really begins, Vali must carry on with her younger brother across the country to make it to safety before it's too late.
Gripping and urgent, co-authors Paola Mendoza and Abby Sher have crafted a narrative that is as haunting as it is hopeful in envisioning a future where everyone can find sanctuary.
And don’t miss the sequel, Solis, available now!
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"? “This searing near-future dystopian novel . . . [uses] a speculative lens to lay bare the trauma and anguish that migrants to the U.S. can experience as well as the human capacity for survival. Though the novel’s unflinching honesty and real-world parallels deliver uncomfortable truths, its propulsive narrative and its message of hope and resilience will carry readers through."
— Publisher Weekly, starred review
“A triumph in its genre and so politically astute that it sears.”
— School Library Journal (starred review)Mendoza and Sher’s descriptions of emotional trauma are heart-wrenchingly raw. (When she was 3, Mendoza herself emigrated from Colombia to America with her mother and younger brother.) A story of survival and hope, Sanctuary is a gripping work of fiction, with a message about xenophobia that’s rooted in a scarily real world.
— New York TimesLike classic dystopian novels 1984 and Fahrenheit 451... Sanctuary feels all too real in today’s oddly apocalyptic world.
— Teen Vogue★ “This searing near-future dystopian novel . . . [uses] a speculative lens to lay bare the trauma and anguish that migrants to the U.S. can experience as well as the human capacity for survival. Though the novel’s unflinching honesty and real-world parallels deliver uncomfortable truths, its propulsive narrative and its message of hope and resilience will carry readers through.
— Publisher Weekly, starred review★ “In their portrayal of Vali’s family’s quest for safety, the authors beautifully mirror the treacherous, painful, and terrifying treks involving natural and human threats that migrants to the U.S. undertake as they traverse continents and oceans…Wrenching and unmissable.
— Kirkus, starred review★ “[This] stunning work of YA dystopian fiction . . . is a triumph in its genre and so politically astute that it sears.
— School Library Journal, starred reviewThis fast-paced drama depicts the trauma of Vali’s journey in an unflinching, heart-wrenching way that can feel all too real and timely.
— The Horn BookThe all-too-possible future in this suspenseful dystopian novel amplifies the undocumented immigrant experience in the U.S.
— BooklistBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Abby Sher is the author of the young adult novel Kissing Snowflakes. Her writing also appears in the anthologies Modern Love and Behind the Bedroom Door, as well as in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Self, Jane, Elle, and Redbook. She has written and performed for the Second City in Chicago, the Upright Citizen’s Brigade, and the Magnet Theater in New York, and she has appeared on Late Night with Conan O’Brien. She performs improvisation regularly and does voice-over work for television and radio. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter.