A must purchase for all YA library collections. Teens will enjoy reading this because of the dystopian feel. It was clearly making some obvious references to the current immigration crisis and Trump politics (the wall). It was not subtle in this but because it was a teen book I was okay with it and it truly is scary to think how this feels like it could be a reality in the future if things don't change. An excellent choice for a book club or family read/discussion.

This was a hard book to read, mostly because even though it is written as a dystopia, it seem all to possible to become reality in our country. Vali and her little brother Ernie are running from federal officers who have already their arrested their mother for the crime of being an immigrant. But even if they do find sanctuary, will they ever feel safe again?

Sanctuary may be a dystopian novel, but it feels realistic. Set in the not too distant future, all citizens of the U.S. wear microchips proving their citizenship. In Vali's family, only her brother has an authentic chip, the rest of them have black market chips. Then something happens in California that has the entire country on edge. When her mother's chip starts malfunctioning, they decide it is time to leave. Gut-wrenching and too realistic, this is a heart pounding non-stop run towards freedom. Highly recommended.

Sanctuary was a fast-paced, dystopian novel that I very much enjoyed!

At first, I struggled with the premise. I had read great reviews of the book, but was worried it would be similar to Internment by Samira Ahmed, which I didn't like. Sanctuary, while the concept is similar, was different. The writing was good, the characters enjoyable, and the authors were more thoughtful.

My one qualm was that the middle portion of the novel was too fast. I wanted to stay with the Vali and her brother just a little bit longer. It all happened a little too quickly for my taste. The ending was also rushed.

Thank you to Netgalley and G.P. Putnam's Sons Books for Young Readers for the eARC of this book.

This was a horrifying look at the way America could easily fall into a situation where it’s citizens are tagged to track immigration status. This story shook me and made me root for its characters. I am excited to share this with my students.

This was a gut wrenching dystopian novel of a world that seems too realistic. It was really hard to put this book down.. Please vote.

LIKES
I read this book from cover to cover in one day. In my whole bookish career, I think I can count on one hand how many times I’ve done that. I say this to say that Sanctuary was incredible in the most heartbreaking way possible.

The synopsis paints an excellent picture of the story at hand: Vali and her family are immigrants who fled Columbia after an unannounced war begins. They find refuge in San Diego, California, and while it is not perfect, it is temporarily more safe than their home country. But as a tyrannical president takes over and begins a campaign to “clean up” the United States, undocumented immigrants all over the country are suddenly under attack.

It is so hard to explain how reading this book and living in this time feels. Though this book is technically a YA “dystopia” novel set in the year 2032, if you took away some of the advanced technology, you could read this book thinking it was now. September 2020. Under the current “president” Donald Trump. And it is so incredibly painful to say that.

The horrors of human evil that this book covers feels like things that should belong only in a dystopia novel. Instead, they are all too real. They are happening now. And you should see disturbing parallels between this book and this life if you are paying attention. From deportation officers to sudden disappearances. Concentration camps and human trafficking. All of this unfolds through the eyes of a 16-year-old girl who just wants to keep the remainder of her family together and alive. It is a truly gripping story that should make Americans pay very close attention to how our country persecutes innocent families merely because of where they are from. How our country produces smear campaigns to make immigrants look like perpetrators of perpetual violence. How xenophobia is disguised as patriotism and “protecting the American dream.” The American dream is broken. This country was founded on violence and power imbalances. This book makes it painfully clear that America is very much not a sanctuary when the system is constantly trying to root immigrants out and send them “back to where they came from.”

One thing I really appreciated about this book is that Vali and her family are Colombian and not Mexican. I think that it is very easy (ESPECIALLY in the current times) to think of immigration as solely a U.S. – Mexico issue. Here is a reminder that immigration can happen between any two countries. Not every immigrant is from Mexico. Not every immigrant immigrates to the United States. Not every immigrant immigrates to flee violence or persecution. There is so much stigma around what immigration is and what immigrants look like. A reprieve from the U.S. – Mexico immigration story was very appreciated.

I also enjoyed that Spanish is present frequently and colloquially throughout the book and is not always translated immediately after. I’ve read threads on Twitter about POC authors embracing culture (including language) in their work without fear that readers won’t buy it because they “don’t get it,” or dismantling the impulse to explain their culture every single time. I found myself recognizing some Spanish sometimes, and Googling other phrases other times. Here is also a reminder to readers that reading outside of your culture is a healthy reading exercise. And that we as readers should not expect authors to carry the burden of explaining every culturally significant element of a story to us—that’s what Google is for.

In all, I absolutely loved this book and I think everyone should give it a go. It is out now and you can find where to buy it in the links above (not sponsored at all!)

If anything, this books how just how close we are to becoming fiction if something doesn't change within the next few years. This year specifically.

We follow the story of Vali, an immigrant, along with her mother who is also an immigrant, and her younger brother Ernie, who is American born. In the near future, everyone is chipped, not only to make things more efficient, but to "weed out those who threaten this great country." When her mother's chip starts to malfunction and the Deportation Forces are allowed to search any private property without warrant, Vali and her family must run. Run to California which has seceded to become a sanctuary state to illegal immigrants.

This hits hard to home when you start to compare what is happening in the book to what is happening in our own country right now. It is terrifying, and it is real. I do believe that we need as many people as possible to be reading this book if just to see what it means to find peace and happiness and how to help others to find it as well.

Thank you @penguinteen for this free copy of Sanctuary.
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This book is a YA dystopian novel set in the year 2032.⁣
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This is what America looks like:⁣
🔸Everyone is microchipped to keep immigrants out⁣
🔸Every news/internet outlet is controlled by the president⁣
🔸You have to pay to use water fountains⁣
🔸Global warming has taken a turn for the worse⁣
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The novel starts with a brutal occurrence at The Great Wall (wall between America and Mexico). It then follows a Colombian family navigate through life and let me tell you, you will be crying.⁣
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This book is so powerful and eerily it does not feel that far off from the world we live in now. It is less about the trek into America and more about the struggle (putting it lightly) of daily life IN AMERICA.⁣

Wow. This book was a nail biting, terrifying, emotional read for me. The social commentary was incredibly timely and relevant, the characters were well developed and felt real, the pacing was on point. I think this is an incredibly impactful book that more people should be reading and talking about.

I always forget how much I like dystopian YA until I read one and then I want to read all the dystopian books out there! I read Sanctuary and it felt like I was eerily reading into a not so distant future.

The year is 2032, and everybody and everything is chipped and documented. For 16 year old Vali, which lives with her mother and brother Ernie, life is anything but easy. Both, Vali and her mother are undocumented and have a counterfeit chip that they bought illegally. As things start getting worst in Vermont where they live, they know they must run to California, which has become independent and a sanctuary of sorts.

The book is about the journey going west and sadly echoes so many immigrant stories of today. The book is hauntingly and beautifully written, as we see flashbacks of Vali’s earlier life when things were not as grim. There were a couple of sections in the book that were hard to read because of the brutality of the situation, and as a mom, it broke my heart. There was plenty of action and it kept my pulse racing through the majority of the book. This would be a great pick for Latinx Heritage Month if dystopian is your genre!

Set in a not-too-distant America where an unchecked President who advocates for hate is still in office, Sanctuary is an unsettling, often brutal, story of survival. In 2032, Americans are microchipped and tracked. Getting on the bus? You're scanned. Going into school? You're scanned. Some undocumented immigrants have underground chips that don't always work: and when they malfunction, it's bad news. Sixteen-year-old Vali and her mother are undocumented and living in Vermont. Vali's parents crossed over into California when Vali was a toddler; her younger brother, Ernie, was born shortly after. Vali's father was discovered, deported, and murdered, forcing Vali's mother to flee, with her two young children, to Vermont. They've managed to create a life for themselves until a crackdown from the government's Deportation Forces hits their town, sending them on the run once again. Vali's mother's chip malfunctions, and she's taken away, forcing Vali and Ernie to head back toward California - a sanctuary state that's been walled off from the rest of the United States - in the hope that their tía Luna is still alive and able to help them.

Sanctuary is a stressful, urgent, horrific book, because it's a future that's entirely plausible. The Wall exists in this future; people are empowered to openly hate and inform on one another, and Deportation Forces brutally enforce racist executive orders with relish. There are deportation camps in hidden areas, out of the public's line of vision, where human beings are treated like animals, and drones hunt people down like prey. There are people all too willing to take advantage of desperation: coyotes, individuals paid to illegally transport others to California, steal and do worse. There are kind people, like the nun running an underground shelter for refugees, but they feel too few and far between. Vali is an incredible well of strength for her terrified younger brother. There are no wasted characters here: Paola Mendoza and Abby Sher create living, breathing characters that will stay with you long after you've closed the book and returned it to the shelf. With taut pacing and storytelling that will penetrate readers to the bone, Sanctuary is essential reading. 

Paola Mendoza is an activist and co-founder of the Women's March. Abby Sher is a YA author and You can read an excerpt thanks to Teen Vogue. 

Sanctuary has starred reviews from Kirkus and School Library Journal.

3.25 out of 5

Sanctuary by Paola Mendoza and Abby Sher contains an intriguing, mostly-believable, and extremely terrifying premise of what life could look like in 2032, both in the United States of America and worldwide. However, Sanctuary largely moves at an accelerated pace and the novel’s plotline sometimes appears to be moving too quickly, leaving its readers to guess at the small, minute details that may have been skipped in a variety of scenes that the authors had determined to be of lesser importance. My favorite thing about Sanctuary, quite honestly, is the main character, Vali (Amelia Catherine Davis, according to her “chip” identity, that she received after the president won a third term and began building the Great American Wall and issuing “proclamations”), who is a sixteen-year-old girl currently living with her mom and younger brother in the state of Vermont. Vali is determined, resilient, and optimistic, as she overcomes numerous ordeals and dilemmas while protecting her younger brother, Ernie, who is in second grade, and who was born in America, unlike Vali, and her mom and dad.

While Sanctuary is fast-paced, it also manages to convey many horrific scenes committed against immigrants, often undocumented, and often featuring the president’s Deportation Force. Authors Mendoza and Sher do a remarkable job describing and illustrating uncomfortable situations that will leave a vivid mark on readers’ minds, as many already grapple with difficult current realities that sometimes make the novel hit too close to home. All in all, I would have preferred if Sanctuary had avoided a cliché teenage romance, so it could have remained true to its focus on social justice and social action. It also felt implausible that the state of California would be the only state to rebel against a tyrannical president in 2032. There are many other progressive and liberal cities, states, and regions within the United States, that would, more than likely, reject the actions of the president that is featured in Sanctuary. Also, the idea that a Great American Wall would be built around California, rather than entering into a full-blown civil war against California, was hard to believe. In many ways, it felt that the authors failed to research our current realities, politically, and examine cities and states throughout the United States, as a whole. Overall, I do believe that many teenagers would benefit from reading this eye-opening, riveting novel, and wouldn’t be as caught up in the details, as adult readers. Sanctuary definitely has a target audience: young readers, but the novel is not for the faint of heart…

A warm-hearted and much-appreciated thank you to Penguin Young Reader’s Group, G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers, and NetGalley for providing an advance copy! Please make sure to pick up a copy of Sanctuary at your local book depository.

What if the American President was in his third term, there was a giant wall and land mines at the U.S. Mexico border, everyone had chips in their wrist to track their identity, and undocumented immigrants were being viciously hunted down by militant government forces? Oh and California is seceding to offer sanctuary...this is the near future dystopian world woven in YA novel Sanctuary. It's brutal and horrifying.

The main character is Vali, a teen girl from Colombia who is living as an undocumented immigrant with her mother and her younger brother (born in the U.S.). Vali and her mom have fake chips, but they know they won't work forever. When California secedes and the government clamps down harder than ever, they must go on the run and take a perilous journey in hopes of getting to California.

I'm not kidding when I say this book is brutal, though mirroring the real life experiences of many undocumented immigrants fleeing to America today. Without specific spoilers but including things that take place as part of the plot, people are taken away, brutalized, die, and experience extreme conditions including heat and lack of food or water. Part of the journey involves paying thousands of dollars for passage with a coyote (person who secretly transports people across borders) where things go wrong. There is threat of sexual violence to the MC, off-page sexual violence toward other women, the death of children, and more.

This book can be difficult to read due to the content and doesn't offer a neatly wrapped up ending either. Rather it seems intended to raise awareness and push people to think about where things could go and what it might require to bring any kind of change. And for that, I think it's a very effective and powerful (if terrifying) story that feels reminiscent to 1984 in tone. The book suffers a bit from a relatively straightforward plot that never really surprised me, and because this isn't contemporary fiction I would have liked to see more intrigue and understanding of what's happening in the wider world. Instead this is a more narrow story that focuses on the experience of one family, and perhaps that's exactly what it intended to do. I would definitely still recommend this. I received an advance copy of this book for review via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

This book left me scared. I kept thinking to myself how is this possible and yet you can the beginnings of this future in our world right now. That's terrifying. Vali's journey was harsh and unforgiving but it was certainly impactful for the reader. This is a story that stays with you long after reading.

“When they are coming for you, run. Run faster than them. Run smarter than them. Just run.”⁣
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💥 Sanctuary is a dystopian novel, set in 2032 in a time in which US citizens have chips implanted in their wrists as proof of residency, the “Great American Wall” has been built between US and Mexico, and the President has created concentration camps to have undocumented immigrants pay off their debt in America. ⁣
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💥 It’s a great story that kept me at the edge of my seat. It’s beautiful and heartbreaking at the same time. I cried in many parts of this book. Everything just felt real. It’s like a nightmare that could possibly happen in our future. ⁣
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💥 I loved the main character, Vali. She’s strong, brave and full of hope and I was really rooting for her and her brother from the beginning. It’s gut-wrenching to imagine someone like Vali having to fight for their lives like in this story.⁣
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💥 Overall, Sanctuary is difficult, heavy and yet a very powerful read. Highly highly recommend.⁣

Wow! If you read one book all year, read this one.
This is a survivalistic story of a teen and her little brother who have nowhere to go as the government attempts to track down undocumented immigrants. It's a very quick read that doesn't sugar-coat anything.
The story takes place in a very near-future society that is very close to what is going on in the US right now. A wall is already being built, we already have a president who is attempting to get elected again and again, and more and more hate is being spread, and propaganda being believed by people who think that undocumented immigrants are a threat.
The chips implanted in everyone (which anyone who is undocumented has to get a counterfeit version of) is already represented by the fear of discovery that undocumented immigrants face. At every turn, Vali is afraid of being found out, of her counterfeit chip not working, or something else going wrong.
And even with everything the characters face, dodging federal agents only to continue sleeping in alleyways and other unsafe places, they know that they can't simply return to Columbia because things there are even more dangerous, and the narrative never lets you forget that either.

This dystopian novel, set in 2032, tells the story of Vali, a teenage girl whose parents fled years ago to the United States from a life threatening situation in Columbia. When Vali’s parents are taken by the deportation forces of a totalitarian regime, she attempts to carry out her mother’s wishes for her and her little brother to make the perilous journey to her aunt who lives in the only sanctuary state in the country. This heartbreaking read is full of loss and grief, but inspires compassion and generosity in its wake.
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As a Hispanic person whose family has been here for generations, I am grateful for reads like this that allow me to enter into other experiences. This story demands compassion regardless of political affiliation and calls it’s readers to a broken heart for those caught in impossibly unfathomable circumstances.

2032. All citizens have identity chips implanted in their wrists. The President is serving his third term, making undocumented immigrants the cause of all the ills in the country, and he announces a new initiative to sweep the country using the Deportation Force. Vali’s little brother, Ernie, was born in the United States and is a citizen, but she and her mother, Liliana, refugees from Columbia, have fake chips. When the DF starts arresting workers in their small Vermont town, Vali’s mother prepares them for a long journey to safety, stopping first in Queens where they will meet a nun who helped Liliana in the past.

Before they get very far, Liliana’s chip glitches, and she’s arrested by the DF. She mouths, “Go,” to Vali, so Vali, just a teenager, becomes responsible for getting her and her brother to sanctuary in California, a state that doesn’t recognize the President’s draconian policies. As they travel toward the California border, the two encounter hunger, fatigue, predators, and unexpected friends. Vali must be stronger than she thought possible for Ernie, even as the true horrors of the Deportation Force emerge.

This YA dystopia presents obstacles at relentless pace, and they are all the more terrifying because they reflect what undocumented immigrants actually experience. The near-future Paola Mendoza and Abby Sher imagine, sadly, is not a fantastical vision but a conceivable version of a future United States if embers of hate are stoked further and policies go farther.

While 𝘚𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘳𝘺 is a difficult read, on the surface it is a gripping escape story while conveying an important and worthwhile message: everyone deserves sanctuary.

Sanctuary is a hard read because it melds the dystopian intensity of the Hunger Games with the haunting familiarity of today's America.

In the near future, immigrants in America are persecuted to the nth degree. I felt strong deja-vu to Lois Lowry's Number the Stars as Vali and her family pretend to be natural-born, white citizens; as the government conducts raids and neighbors disappear; as schools teach their students to fear and hate anyone other; as Vali and her brother flee out of state in hopes of finding sanctuary.

Mendoza's criticism of today's politics is thinly veiled at best. The President spouts rhetoric to anyone to has heard America's current president speak. Information is censored and funneled through government-controlled stations. Mendoza even drops "making America great." I actually found Sanctuary harder to read than The Hunger Games *because* it took today's climate and cranked it up to the nth degree. It was hard to detach and get lost in the story, which I suspect was the author's point.

One detail I really liked was the bilingual aspects. Usually when a book has character speaking in another language, they include context clues to determine the meaning. Sanctuary just plows on ahead with the story. As a (non-native) Spanish speaker, I was able to appreciate the seamless back-and-forth between English and Spanish, but it could be hard for some readers. It's also just a taste of what second language learners experience.

Overall, Sanctuary is a powerful, haunting, important book that could easily sit beside The Hate You Give as commentary on the current political climate. The dystopianized elements invites discussion of America's current immigration policies, while Vali's character brings in a heartbreakingly human element.