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Salvage

door Alexandra Duncan

Reeksen: Salvage (1)

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3272278,990 (3.64)10
"Ava, a teenage girl living aboard the male-dominated, conservative deep space merchant ship Parastrata, faces betrayal, banishment, and death. Taking her fate into her own hands, she flees to the Gyre, a floating continent of garbage and scrap in the Pacific Ocean. How will she build a future on an Earth ravaged by climate change?"--… (meer)
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1-5 van 22 worden getoond (volgende | toon alle)
Fantastic world building! Yay! A welcome change from my recent reading. (Lots of other stuff about this book is good, too:) ( )
  sgwordy | Dec 31, 2022 |
This book was really really good, and this cover is really really really wrong. As is the blurb.

This is a story about Ava, a girl raised in a spaceship in a very strict and patriarchal society. She breaks some rules and is forced to escape and flee to Earth in a mailship to avoid an honor killing. On Earth--specifically the floating city built over the plastic Gyre in the pacific--Perpétue, the captain of the mailship essentially adopts her while she is adjusting to the differences of earth gravity, and Ava learns to read and to fly a spaceship herself. Ava has an aunt in Mumbai, so when yet more disaster strikes, she and Perpétue's daughter head there to find her.

This is not the book that the cover is for--that is light and fluffy, and this book is serious and painful over and over again, but I had only meant to read a chapter before bed, and that was 2 hours ago. It was very very good. ( )
  tanaise | Jul 17, 2022 |
Putting the "Dys" in dystopian, Duncan has written a scary, brave, profoundly disturbing and empowering sci-fi stand-alone book with a kick-ass main character.

There were things I did not love, but that made sense for a plot involving a cult that evolves on a starship. Well written, and hard to put down. ( )
  jennybeast | Apr 14, 2022 |
This is the book that I want all other books to be like. I just wanted to start with that before I launch into my explanations and adorations.

I read the first few chapters of this book in 2012 at the Denver Publishing Institute. We were given the first few chapters of four young adult novels and told to decide which we would publish, given the choice, and of the two to which I said, "absolutely," this was the one that said, "this MUST be published." (The joke was on us: all the books had already been accepted!). I've been waiting for this book ever since.

And let me tell you, it did the opposite of disappoint.

I based by "decision" on the first few chapters, which take place in a very different world: a restrictive, regressive society on board long-range merchant space ships in which Ava Parastrata, the main character, is so girl, the oldest daughter of the next generation of whom everyone expects the best behavior. She's told that she's to be married and she cautiously hopes for a future for the only boy she's ever really interacted with who's thought of her as a human being, and it looks like everything is going her way...

This culture is so skillfully built that it comes alive, and in a few pages we have full-fledged characters. (Writer's envy alert!) Of course, I knew the change was coming, the conflict that makes literature tick--and boy did it ever!

Let me put it this way, usually when I like a book I read it too fast and feel disappointed that there's so little. With Salvage, I was reading fast but things kept happening, the world kept changing, curves kept coming, and I still wasn't at the end and I still wasn't antsy to move on to the next book!

Ava is the very definition of a strong female character: her struggles and emotions feel real and relatable even as her circumstances certainly aren't. She overcomes physical weakness, an uneven education, and feelings of worthlessness only at great price and with great pain. Nothing is easy, nothing is straightforward. Every advance is earned.

The biggest shock to those who know me is a testament to how well done Ava is: I did not think the sort-of love triangle was stupid. I know, right? Have I ever thought that? Ava is as deeply practical as she is hopeful--she builds her life even as she hangs onto a few wisps of her past. Her complex love for everyone in her life is so powerful that the two men she loves don't dominate the scene. It's practically perfect.

For complex world building and the creation of at least four full cultures: five stars. For realistic characters who are almost never oversimplified: five stars. For characters of color, of all ages, of all sizes and shapes: five stars.

And don't let me leave out the language! I'm sure there will be some people complaining that it sounds stiff and strange, but that was part of what drew me to it. I can't imagine what it must have taken to write the whole book in this style, incorporating both familiar, archaic, and futuristic elements. I appreciated the changed emphasis of sentences with words put together that we don't usually see side by side and I loved that the foreign words were spelled as Ava heard them, like Perpetue's pet name, "fi". (Also, shout out to my Southern family: Ava says "might can"!)

I have only two small complaints, both of which are sort of spoiler-y even though so much happens in this book that giving them away doesn't "ruin" the book at all.

First (and this happens in the third to last chapter, so DO NOT click if you don't want to know), I was disappointed that no one ever straight-up told Ava, "You are worth so much more than your 'virginity', and down here on earth, we're not going to condemn you just for having sex before you're married." It's implied a lot, from Ava overhearing people getting in the mood to Soraya's offer to take her to the doctor for contraception, but no one says it outright. This isn't something that Ava is going to find out for herself! It's the same kind of avoidance-for-propriety that kept me so, well, judgmental for so long. I would hope that a world this far in the future would be more open to talking about sex.

Honestly, I wanted Rushil to say it. I wanted him to tell Ava--slowly, carefully--that people earthside don't place a woman's value solely on whether or not she's had sex before, that they will see her for herself rather than her reproductive organs. I know this isn't at all what's intended in that scene, but the way it reads is that Rushil is this amazingly forgiving person willing to overlook what she still sees as a major failing. I could see her feeling like she can't leave him because she doesn't know if anyone else would be as accepting as Rushil is.

So, in my headcanon, Ava has this conversation with Rushil and Soraya at some point. So there.


That was a much longer rant than I expected. It turns out, once I'm in the spoiler cut, I let loose with the details that I'm afraid to mention in the review proper for fear or giving away how great the story is.

Anyhoo, the second thing is that this is another book where I really feel as though the last chapter could have been left off and the story would have been just as good...maybe, I cautiously say, better. The closing scene of the penultimate chapter was just so perfect there was no real way to top it.

I'd also kind of started to hope that Ava would never meet Luck again, would never know what became of him. While I thought it would be that way, I was satisfied--it felt real, and honest. And, frankly, I felt like this journey had been so great already that Ava didn't need to say the things she says to Luck out loud for them to be there--except maybe the part about not wanting children, which I think is very important. There's so much emphasis on motherhood being part of femininity and it's so important for young people to know that that's not the only way for a woman to live.

All that said, since we did get the last chapter, I wanted Ava to say that she know she was she good enough to be a captain's wife because she was a captain herself! But I guess that is a bit much like bragging, which is not something Ava would do. My preferred response wouldn't really be in her character.


I'm so glad I knew about this book because I don't know how I would have found it otherwise. The jacket description leaves much to be desired and the cover was clearly a victim of the cheap stock image catalogue. Also, it's sad to say, but many boys will not pick up this book because there's a girl on the cover--especially a girl who looks so powerless and uninteresting (they were never going to find a stock image with Parastrata fashion, but couldn't they have found some unusual clothes). I feel bad for all the boys who will never read this remarkable story.

So if you're reading this review, read Salvage! It's a fantastic, feminist book, a great vision of the future that's not totally dystopian, and it will take you to places so vivid you'll feel like you've been there. I can't recommend it enough!


Quote Roundup

p 52. "You are the sails, Ava. My girl. You are the sails."
It's early on but it sets the tone for the whole novel. It's nonsense coming from the mouth of Ava's ill and dying mother, but its interpretations can change depending on which part of the book you apply it to. How is Ava the sails? As a future mother bearing the children who will keep the ship sailing. As the catalyst of change. As the one who brings others, literally and metaphorically, to places they have never been but need or want to be.

p 113. I'm just bringing this up because this is when we find out what a biolume is and it's freakin' awesome!

p 180. I'm shamed, thinking on it. What kind of woman am I that wouldn't want a child?
This was such an important moment, one that (as I've said) I wish got a bit more attention. There's so much emphasis on motherhood as a sign of being a woman, but not all women want to be mothers--and they need to know that that's okay. This piece of Ava's spaceside world is all to easy to find in our own.

p 227. "At best, you'll spend your life trying not to get hurt, but trying not to do the hurting, either. You won't always come through, but it's the best anyone can do. It's the trying I'd call good."
I love Perpetue so much, and I love her description of what it is to be good. It's so easy to feel that we're not good enough, but for those who sincerely try, well, maybe that is enough in itself.

p 285. I hurry away before she can salt me with more questions and offers of help.
This is a fantastic image, such a clever turn to a familiar phrase. Just enough to feel different without being different enough to feel strange.

p 320. I'm back with my crewe, bowing my head and scraping and terrified.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is what makes Ava's character so good--everyone's had these moments when they feel like they're four years old and being scolded for doing something you didn't know was wrong. Life is difficult and messy and it doesn't always move forward.

p 448. Some months earlier, I might have left steaming with anger that the boys clung so hard to their crewe ways, that they wouldn't deign to talk to me. But now, looking at them, I only feel sad. How will they ever make their way in this world if they can't bring themselves to talk to anyone but men?
This moment of insight Ava has was so well done. She understands why they are the way they are--she doesn't fall into the trap of thinking that if she can change, it should be easy for other people to change as well--but she doesn't accept it for herself and she sees it in the wider context. This isn't just about them, it's about everything they know. Fixing that is almost impossible. Now what does that remind you of?

p 462. For some reason, it feels better to be alone with my ghosts, like if I told someone about them, they might vanish, and then I might forget.
A feeling I've had all too often myself. Sometimes it feels like the telling acts as an eraser, and sometimes you don't want to get rid of even the bad memories because they were the ones that made us who we are, made us grow. It's a melancholy place to be, treasuring something painful because its importance to you may not be understood by even someone you love.

p 519. The ending of the lopsided love triangle I didn't hate. Perhaps I can accept it because Ava doesn't settle for just one love. She's full of it, brimming with it for so many people in her life, and her choice of future does not change her past. She contains multitudes now, and she chooses to stay that way. ( )
  books-n-pickles | Oct 29, 2021 |
To this book's credit, I only read three chapters, so it could be an excellent book. It just suffered because I picked it up today to read, and today I am sick of futuristic books where women's roles have reverted to horribly restricted, male dominated positions in society. I'm NOT IN THE MOOD for a future where humans have managed to become MORE SEXIST than current day.

If I have to see things like this and this about the ways sexism is the worst TODAY then I would like my escapism to be ESCAPIST. I don't want to read about how "You can't nurse a baby and run a navigation program at the same time" (p. 19). I imagine this book has the main character overcoming such attitudes in some fashion (... at least I hope it does), but I am just out of the patience required to invest in such a world.

So I will not be reading this right now. Or possibly ever.

Also: the patriarchy is the worst. UGH.
  bookbrig | Aug 5, 2020 |
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"Ava, a teenage girl living aboard the male-dominated, conservative deep space merchant ship Parastrata, faces betrayal, banishment, and death. Taking her fate into her own hands, she flees to the Gyre, a floating continent of garbage and scrap in the Pacific Ocean. How will she build a future on an Earth ravaged by climate change?"--

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