Crazy Book Tours: Salvation City by Sigrid Nunez

Title: Salvation City
Author: Sigrid Nunez
Publisher: Penguin Group
Publish Date: September 6, 2011
Source: Crazy Book Tours

Why You're Reading This Book:

• You like dystopian fiction.
• You like realistic dystopian fiction. 

What's The Story?:

From Goodreads.com: "In an American landscape devastated by a flu pandemic, orphaned thirteen-year-old Cole is rescued by an evangelical couple. Adjusting to a new life, he struggles with memories of the past. As other survivors become dedicated to their own vision of utopia, Cole imagines a wholly different future for himself.

Written in Sigrid Nunez's deceptively simple style, Salvation City is a story of love, betrayal, and forgiveness, blending the deeply affecting story of a young boy's transformation with a profound meditation on belief, heroism, and the true meaning of salvation."

My Two Cents:

By now you guys know that I really like dystopian fiction and I like when they at least have a little bit of a realistic premise. Salvation City has a very realistic premise: a whole bunch of people are dying from a flu. Frankly, it's a little creepy but it works. Cole loses his parents in the flu epidemic and is adopted by a pastor and his nice but sort of dumb wife. The environment in Salvation City is unlike anything that Cole has known. He grew up in a very secular house and Salvation City is in the midst of preparing for the apocalypse since they believe the flu pandemic has signaled the end of the days.

I liked this book. It had an interesting premise. Cole essentially is shown two ways of life or two paths that he can follow. He's young and so he struggles with these truths (okay, just about anyone would struggle with these choices). He doesn't know which way to go. On the whole, I thought the book had some holes that I would have liked more information about. You can't really tell which way Cole goes. You get to see the beginning of the choice that he makes but not the total resolution. It would have been nice to see which way he really went.

I sort of struggled with what rating to give this one. I really like the premise and the writing was really good. You really get a good sense of the characters. I just wish that the book would have felt a little more finished. This is still a really good read but the lack of a neat ending irked me.