Book Review- Salvage

Salvage by Alexandra Duncan

♦publisher: Harper Teen 
♦release date: April 1,  2014
♦hardcover, 520 pages
♦intended audience: Young adult
♦rating: ♥♥♥♥

Review:

Ava grew up upon the male dominated ship Parastrata, a deep space vessel that never docks on earth. Where they teach their women that, along with their servitude, they are bound to their men. Women were not to be educated, or have the freedoms that the men have upon the ship.

So when Ava, finds out she is to be bound to marriage with a male from another vessel, she can only hope it will be, Luck, her childhood friend on the companion vessel, AEther. Once dressed within the marriage clothing, data pendant, and laden with copper bridal bands, Ava boards the vessel with anticipation and hope that her life might start to change, for the better.

However, Ava’s new freedom upon the Aether, leads her curiosity into making an unfortunate mistake. Banishing Ava, not only from the ship but sentencing her to death, by being cast out into the void. Taking fate into her own hands, Ava makes moments count and escapes upon a floating continent.  With sacrifice and mercy, Ava finds fate plays its fickle hand and she is granted passage onto a vessel headed Earthbound, by a female pirate of the sky, Perpetue.  All too soon, Ava discovers death in the void may have been a more humane punishment, than suffering the effects of earth’s gravity. However, mercy gives her a chance, as Perpetue and her daughter Miyole take her in.  Caring for her during the brutal months it takes her body to adjust to the new climate.

 Yet, life does not bestow its graces upon Ava as she once again finds herself in deaths grasp. Teaching Ava that she will once again need to stand upon her own morals and strength. As she sets forth in an adventure of historic proportions, facing dangerous lands, death storms, bandits, robbers and those trying to take advantage of a lonely sky voyager. With a new resolve, Ava must learn not only who to trust but who to turn to for help; how to read and how to survive with new land laws. All the while, with Luck still sitting heavily upon her heart and her mind. Leaving readers to question, will her heart always remain in space, or will a new earthy man be able to change her heart and keep her earthly bound?

Alexandra Duncan explores alternate worlds of sky ships and Earth, along with that of ultimate resolve. Thought provoking and heart breaking, Alexandra Duncan touches upon many social structures. Making readers think for themselves, between what is right and what is wrong, along with how societies can rise and fall through struggle and change. Teaching young women that anything is possible, through exploring one girls resolve to not die, to stand and fight for the freedom,  to be more than a servant. Ultimately, asking the question, where does your heart truly lie?