Sanctuary by Paola Mendoza and Abby Sher

It's 2032, and in this near-future America, all citizens are chipped and everyone is tracked--from buses to grocery stores. It's almost impossible to survive as an undocumented immigrant, but that's exactly what sixteen-year-old Vali is doing. She and her family have carved out a stable, happy life in small-town Vermont, but when Vali's mother's counterfeit chip starts malfunctioning and the Deportation Forces raid their town, they are forced to flee.

Now on the run, Vali and her family are desperately trying to make it to her tía Luna's in California, a sanctuary state that is currently being walled off from the rest of the country. But when Vali's mother is detained before their journey even really begins, Vali must carry on with her younger brother across the country to make it to safety before it's too late.

Gripping and urgent, co-authors Paola Mendoza and Abby Sher have crafted a narrative that is as haunting as it is hopeful in envisioning a future where everyone can find sanctuary.

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I really wish I could recommend this unreservedly. It's exactly the type of story we need to be selling and buying and reading and passing on, and I will do those things. I didn't hate it, I didn't even dislike it. I just didn't really connect with it.

Vali is a good character, strong when she needs to be, occasionally selfish and short sighted, more or less a normal teenager. The world she's living in manages to be both horrifically impossible and every likely at the same time. I would have liked to know more about the world, though. There's no real backstory on anything apart from her family and a couple of other people she meets.

As is probably necessary in this kind of story, there's no neat ending. A lot of threads are left floating at the end, people we've met and don't know what happened to. I expected it as I was reading, and it's handled as well as it could be. I hope Vali gets closure on them eventually.

It's a good read and I will be recommending it to people.