The visually euphoric YA graphic novel Salvage by debut author/artist Renée Nault (adaptor, The Handmaid's Tale: The Graphic Novel) features immersive world-building, memorable characterization, and sadly relevant social and environmental commentary.
In the aftermath of rising sea levels and mass "climate displacement," the characters of Salvage live in a coastal city divided into two neighborhoods: the glamorous, hilltop Uplands and the poverty-stricken, waterlogged Flats. Teenager Paolo, who lives in the Flats, earns a living diving to salvage objects from the ruins of a drowned city. On one particularly lucky dive, golden-skinned, red-haired Paolo finds a watertight suitcase filled with designer clothes that look like what "people in the Uplands wear." Paolo decides to dress up and visit the Uplands "just for one night." There, he meets rosy-skinned, white-haired Jules, the daughter of one of the Uplands' biggest movie stars. When Jules mistakes Paolo for an Uplander, he doesn't correct her and begins leading a double life, diving by day and building a romance with Jules by night.
Nault brings Paolo's and Jules's dissimilar neighborhoods to dazzling life with ink and watercolor illustrations. She juxtaposes scenes in the earth-toned, cluttered yet close-knit Flats with the neon-hued, chaotic, and decadent Uplands. Details such as signs, labels, and billboards organically reveal the current world and hint at the one now gone. Salvage's stark rich/poor divide and rising seas are a pertinent commentary on 21st-century life. Readers will likely root for Paolo's and Jules's emotional journeys as they struggle to remain true to themselves in a precarious world. --Alanna Felton, freelance reviewer