Book Review: "Sanctuary" by Paola Mendoza

 

SanctuarySanctuary by Paola Mendoza
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Sanctuary is a young adult alternate reality fiction novel. It takes place in America during the near future of 2032. In this dystopian take of the country, the fight against immigration and the use of racial profiling and discrimination has evolved into a chilling reality. Walls are being placed to separate those wanted from those deemed not worthy. Identification chips are placed into every citizen to help weed out illegal immigrants in order to be deported back from where they came from or put into detention camps. After violence keeps erupting against this new reality, California decides to take a stand in solidarity. They have chosen to become a sanctuary state to all immigrants in the country seeking it. Sanctuary follows Vali and her family on their journey from trying to survive in America as immigrants to making the escape to safety in California. The questions are, can they make it? Or will California’s consequence of defying the status quo, earning them their own wall cutting them off from the rest of the country, stop Val and her family from achieving their last shot of having sanctuary.

This book discusses and sheds light on a very current topic. Themes of immigration, racism, profiling, and government monitoring are found all around us. As disturbing as this dystopian picture was, it felt very realistic and plausible adding even more tension. Mendoza did well to cover multiple angles of someone’s potential experiences of this kind of scenario within a single book without it feeling overfilled with details. Although she does not shy away from hard traumatic topics these people experience, she evokes the emotions of the readers to sympathize without sharing more disturbing details. Overall, I enjoyed this story and felt invested in the characters. It also helped to expand my viewpoint on the possibilities of what horrors could happen within our own borders should the country take a turn towards this reality. As well as, how those who stand against it will react and try to help. That being said, as a dystopian novel themed about extremist racism in America’s future, there is not really any new content in this novel that cannot be found in others like it.


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