I’ve written before about how I’m tired of young adult science fiction that is only capable of imagining a future where women are treated in awful ways (usually explicit or de facto sexual slavery). Often, these sorts of hypothetical societies seem done more for shock value than to serve the story and its characters, and they frequently do not take a hard look at where certain Earth societies are now and postulate a logical future for them. So you can imagine my trepidation going into Salvage by Alexandra Duncan.

The story begins on a space ship where grown men take multiple teenage girls as wives. Women and girls are not allowed to set foot on Earth (though men are), and the culture’s mythology prevents them from doing something as basic as singing, much less making repairs to the ship or anything else besides child-rearing.

Ava was born into this society, aboard a trading ship called the Parastrata. She is sixteen and has been told she is to become a wife to a man aboard the Aether. When it appears that Luck, the captain’s son and her friend and sweetheart of sorts, is to be that man, she is overjoyed. But Ava and Luck make a terrible mistake based on faulty information, and Ava finds herself on the run from her family and the crews of both the Parastrata and the Aether.

What I’ve mentioned above is actually a fairly small portion of the book. Most of Ava’s story takes place on Earth. She initially escapes to the Gyre, a continent-sized trash heap in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. She’s taken in by a scarred (physically and metaphorically) but kind woman and her pre-teen daughter, who teach Ava how to fly a ship. Afterward, Ava finds herself in Mumbai, seeking her mother’s sister. These two settings are wildly different (one completely fabricated), but equally well-realized.

This is a slower-paced book, not as chock-full of action as, say, Beth Revis’ Across the Universe or Amy Kathleen Ryan’s Glow, which it’s been compared to (though it still reads very quickly). Duncan takes time to immerse the reader in each place she creates, whether that place is space, the Pacific Ocean, or India. Everything is told through Ava’s eyes, so the wonder and mystery and strangeness of all these settings is made very clear. That’s one thing I really loved about this book: it highlights just how overwhelming it is to find yourself in a place where no one understands you. And the place where Ava is understood, at least to a degree – the Parastrata – does make sense in the context of the story. Duncan’s writing never makes what happens aboard the ship seem salacious. The fact that the ships are so isolated from Earth, free of any regulation but their own, in a harsh environment, does make it more likely that they’d develop a society that adheres to a very rigid set of rules that benefits those already in power. This is addressed in more depth near the end of the book.

It’s clear that future Earth is wildly different from present-day Earth, but we don’t get an infodump that explains how it got that way. Instead, we discover on our own. Duncan lets the reader infer from what Ava sees: the trash in the middle of the ocean, the difference in living conditions between different classes of people in Mumbai, and so on. When done right, world-building is a discovery, and I feel like Duncan nailed it.

There’s a lot that Duncan packs into her novel, theme-wise: the meaning of family, the ethics of objectively studying another human culture, class privilege, gender and sexuality. Furthermore, the cast is multi-racial and multi-cultural, so important and so rare in mainstream YA SF. And if that weren’t enough to entice you to pick this one up, Ava is also good at math and mechanical repairs – in fact, she taught herself how to do sums! I’ll be the first to say I dislike math, but it is so very nice to read about a girl who loves it and excels at it.

Readers who aren’t big fans of science fiction may initially shy away from Ava’s narration, as her speech patterns are a bit odd. She uses some words in different ways than we do; it takes some getting used to. I really appreciate when an author does this. Again, there’s no explanation for the oddness in speech – we figure out what it means along the way. It’s just another way Duncan brings us into Ava’s world.

YA books set in space are trendy right now. This one is more thoughtful and less plot-driven than the others, more like a classic coming-of-age story, different but no worse than thrillers like Glow or Across the Universe. Salvage is a good book for more patient teens who will appreciate reading about a sheltered girl who comes into her own as a young woman in a wild, sometimes-scary, often-beautiful world.

Review copy provided by my librarian book twin and Angie (@misskubelik). Salvage is available now.