Saving the World

by Julia Alvarez, Blanca Camacho (Narrator )

🎧Listening Length = 16 hours and 16 minutes

With a “first-rate performance” (AudioFile) from the narrator and a “beautifully written” plot (Chicago Tribune): While her husband helps combat the AIDS epidemic in the Dominican Republic, author Alma falls down a rabbit hole researching the subject of her latest novel: a 19th-century orphanage director who joined a voyage to prevent the spread of smallpox in America. “Remarkable” (Diana Gabaldon).

A finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award with In the Time of Butterflies, author Julia Alvarez is a beloved voice in modern fiction and poetry. In Saving the World, she weaves the stories of two courageous women-separated by two centuries-into a breathtaking novel of love and idealism in an increasingly troubled world.

A best-selling, Latin-American author living in Vermont, Alma stays behind when her husband travels to the Dominican Republic to help fight AIDS. She needs the time to work on her latest book, but she has terrible writer’s block. Soon, her focus is diverted to an entirely new story, that of the early 19th-century anti-smallpox expedition of Dr. Francisco Balmis. Accompanying Dr. Balmis was Doña Isabel, who cared for the orphan boys serving as living carriers of the smallpox vaccine. It is the narrative of the courageous Doña Isabel that provides hope and inspiration when Alma’s husband is taken captive. Mesmerizing and poetic, Saving the World is a visionary tale that raises profound questions about the world we live in-and whether or not it is beyond redemption.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Book Club, Historical, Literature, Adult Fiction, Novels

Audible Audio

First published April 7, 2006

About the author

Julia Alvarez left the Dominican Republic for the United States in 1960 at the age of ten. She is the author of six novels, three books of nonfiction, three collections of poetry, and eleven books for children and young adults. She has taught and mentored writers in schools and communities across America and, until her retirement in 2016, was a writer-in-residence at Middlebury College. Her work has garnered wide recognition, including a Latina Leader Award in Literature from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, the Hispanic Heritage Award in Literature, the Woman of the Year by Latina magazine, and inclusion in the New York Public Library’s program “The Hand of the Poet: Original Manuscripts by 100 Masters, from John Donne to Julia Alvarez.” In the Time of the Butterflies, with over one million copies in print, was selected by the National Endowment for the Arts for its national Big Read program, and in 2013 President Obama awarded Alvarez the National Medal of Arts in recognition of her extraordinary storytelling.

Photo copyright by Brandon Cruz González
EL VOCERO DE PUERTO RICO

Reviews

[Erin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I actively decided to stop reading this book, over 3/4 of the way through. Enough was enough. And stopping a book once I've started it is a rare occurrence.

I was surprised myself--I loved Alvarez's "In the Time of the Butterflies", but this was nowhere near up to that standard. It was interesting, up to a point--it had to be, to get that far through it. But then, the present-day half of the story just got too ridiculous. I disliked the main character throughout (being what appeared to be a shallowly disguised version of Alvarez herself, what with all the complaints about writer's block and the publishing industry), but her actions during her visit to the Dominican Republic just became unbelievable and outlandish. The 19th century half of the story was certainly the better part of the book, but in the end still not good enough to make me want to keep slogging through the present-day drivel.

[Rebecca · Rating 2 out of 5]

This belongs that hit or miss category of novel that attempts to connect a contemporary story rooted in the modern woes of a writer/journalist with the subject of her historical research. The novel becomes the story of two women from vastly different circumstances and eras whose stories begin to merge. The great risk in writing a novel with distinct story lines is that one will be far more compelling than the other. Such is the case with Saving the World. The story involving an expedition of twenty-two orphans boys and their guardian, Isabel Sendales y Gomez, on 19th century quest to rid of the world of small pox, is a fascinating one. Isabel is a complex and courageous woman and the circumstances surrounding her make for a compelling plot line. By contrast, the story of Alma Huebner, a novelist pulled into Isabel's story amidst mid-life crisis and writer's block, is far less riveting. Where things really go awry, as they do so often in these narrative duets, is when the author attempts to, either through plot or theme, intersect the lives of the lead protagonists. What was believable becomes silly coincidence. Plot twists feel forced into shape, leaving the reader to divest themselves of any connection they might have once felt for the modern characters.
Alvarez is a skilled writer who I think attempted to do too much with this story. She didn't seem to trust in the original inspiration for the story (a footnote on the Royal Smallpox Expedition that had been turned away from the Dominican Republic) to carry the novel. Not every novelist can take on historical fiction in a compelling way. Alvarez is more than up to the task.

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two stories alternately told are separated by time but linked thematically. Excellent story (ies), beautifully written. I thought it "worked" overall and was fascinated by the true story of the Spanish Royal Philanthropic Expedition which I had never heard of until I read this book. Although some critics have disliked Alma, the contemporary protagonist, I thought Alvarez really captured the self absorption (and attendant consequences of this modern malaise) so rampant today.

[Ana Ovejero · Rating 4 out of 5]

quotes I like:

"There has to be a place left in modern life for a crisis of the soul, a dark night that doesn't have a chemical solution."

"people don't just belong to themselves, ..., they belong to the people who love them."

"...they keep the world running.Somebody's got to do it. Just like someone has to go to the edge and look and come back and tell about it. That was always her part, Alma thought. But what if what she has seen is not something she wants to broadcast? What is there is nothing but the still, sad music of humanity over that edge? What does she come back and tell? We're floating on faith. We're floating on love. We, the lucky ones."

[Abigail · Rating 1 out of 5]

AWFUL. I can't believe I even picked this book back up after I motored through HP7. What a waste of time. Extremely redundant, which actually hurt my writerly soul.

Previously I had said:
I've only just begun this book, so it's hard to say how good it will end up being.

The novel follows Alma, a 49-year-old woman attempting to pull herself out of a depressive funk who is attempting to write another novel. However she keeps finding herself sidetracked with a the novel's side research--a sea voyage in which a rectoress and 22 orphan boys are being used as carriers for the first smallpox vaccination. (Those of you who know me well are likely not surprised; I do enjoy a good disease book.)

The chapters alternate between Alma's story, as her husband travels to the DR and she stays home to finish the novel (and thus far also to wallow in self pity) and the story of the ship's crew as they travel on their mission of mercy. This is very tough literary tact for a writer to utilize successfully, this hopping back and forth, and I haven't yet decided whether it's working for me.

Thus far, the smallpox side of the story is the more compelling half.

[Hawley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am almost done with this book and have discovered something. There are two female characters and each chapter alternates between the two. The challenge is that one, Alma, seems like a much more lively and realistic character - however, in THESE chapters, Julia Alvarez chooses to make very obvious statements to relate Alma's situation to that of the other character, Isabel. It's a bit like show-and-tell in kindergarten or something. It's just a bit over the top in trying to force teh connection between the two stories.

I'd prefer the book to be about only one of the characters with less telling and more showing. But, that being said, it's not horrid. It's just not a "one of my favorites, can't put it down" kind of read.

[Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book nearly received a 1-star rating so happy was I to be finally finished with it. It always seem that when a book flip-flops between 2 different story lines (in this book one is the present-day story of a depressed writer whose husband is off on an ecological mission and the other is the story of a nun in the 1800s who takes off on the only potential adventure of her lifetime to spread the small pox vaccination) you always want more of one and less of another... That feeling that when you finish one chapter you're obliged to get through the next detour to get back to "your" story. There was enough that was redeeming about both stories to get this up to a 2, but I wouldn't strongly recommend.

[alicia · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me the first hundred or so pages to get into the two stories within this one. But once I did I was "infected with questions" about what it means to save the world, to love and to let go. By the end I loved this book as much as Alvarez's others.

[Megan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating story about a Spanish expedition to bring a small pox vaccine via live carriers (orphans) to Spanish colonies. It's weaved together with a current story about a writer struggling with a novel and her husband who goes to the Dominican Republic to manage a sustainable agriculture project.

[Theresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Listened to this as an audio book. Really enjoyed both Alma and Isabelle's stories!

[Burgess · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonder if I would have enjoyed as much (or more) if I'd read instead of listened to it. Reminded me a little of Gilbert's The Signature of All Things.

[Donna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Listened to the audio book. An odd dual story with a modern story of a marriage and a naive political story set in Latin America paired with a story of a noble woman who chaperones borrowed children to deliver a small pox vaccine around the world. The vaccine story is fascinating and well told but rather repetitive due to the nature of the mission. The modern story is perhaps not all that interesting for the first half as it documents a woman’s worry as her husband embarks on an adventure. An odd combo.

[Mary Haney · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I turned to the first page of Saving the World by Julia Alvarez and discovered it was written in present tense, I was very put-off. The old English teacher in me knew I couldn't read a longish book all in present tense, but I don't give up easily, and I'm glad I did not. Ms. Alvarez reeled me in early and kept me with her to the end.

I too have a story about an author writing a story buzzing around in my brain deflecting my energies from the final book of a trilogy with which I have grown really bored, so I approached this book with some anticipation, curious as to how Ms. Alvarez would accomplish the task. Alternating chapters and present tense/past tense verb changes helped.

Her protagonist, Alma, struggles (notice the present tense) with the realization that everything in her life will now be about loss. She is fifty and sees the future that those of us who have reached the mid-point understand--our loved ones will die, we will lose our abilities,and, though there are still triumphs ahead, the path will inevitably be strewn with loss. It is a form of depression, all who live into those years must walk through. There is no overcoming. Alma understands this and is walking through. Her chapters drift episodically, as her life drifts--a good life with good friends and a sweet husband who loves her. I made my peace with the present tense verb, realizing that Alma is very present tense, the past is finished and the future ominous--she sees trouble coming and expects it in familiar places.

Alma's protagonist, Isabel,is an outgrowth of Alma's malaise, a determined young woman, scarred by smallpox, who makes her way heroically through life, as Alma can no longer do. Isabel is who the author wishes she could be, and as Alma's life unravels, her imaginary other sustains her.

Chapters alternate between the present with Alma unable to complete a book she has promised her publisher and the historical past with Isabel, the rectoress of an orphanage, shepherding her boys through a long expedition to the New World as they carry the serum for smallpox eradication transmitted from one to another through the voyage. The English teacher relaxes with the familiar narrative past tense of the historical chapters.

Both women must confront the concessions that are made to fulfill noble missions, and experience the tensions and disappointment, even tragedy, attendant on living for a Higher Cause. Both women must learn to live with their love for men who care more about saving the world than the women in their lives. What Alma cannot work out in her own life, she works out for Isabel. That's what authors do.

Ms. Alvarez pictures for her readers the interior life of a writer. Everything is framed by story, all of life is story. Alma sees her acquaintances as stereotypes--the Activist, the Saintly Friend, the Unbalanced Catalyst. She fears her beloved husband is the Unfaithful Husband. Events play out according to her interior script. There is the Ominous Stranger who may (or may not) have evil designs on his mother. Alma reacts according to her interior script and the reader must decide whether she sets in motion her own tragedies or whether there truly are sinister undertows. Life lived by story is very untidy.

In contrast, the story within a story is under control from beginning to end, and readers disturbed by the messy realities of Alma's life will find familiar sailing here. Heroine, conflict, resolution--It's what we want. It's what Alma wants.

There is a poignancy here, endings in which both author and her creation move on, one given a satisfactory ending, the other facing loss, but both putting one foot in front of the other, characters now outside their own stories for good or ill.

Best for women after 45, or men out to Save the World.

~mary

[Benji · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very similar to HENDERSON THE RAIN KING in that I completely was unable to judge where the plot might be heading. Recommended, worth reading, if only for that. But Julia Alvarez is capable and it's important

Before I review, I like to see what other people have said, their likes and dislikes with the book. Did I like Alma? Not particularly. Doesn't mean I didnt appreciate following her. I feel like its easy to point to the dual narratives being didactic, and maybe it was, and I found myself skimming parts. But the wealth here is in the nuance. As a Peace Corps volunteer, she hits all of the critiques of development squarely, while still pointing out the need to do it in a better way. That said, she also skewers the picture of the brave rebel that desires to make a proclamation to the world.

At the beginning, I had difficulty taking the book seriously, but I felt this wa

My Dominican friend is reading the book now, and Im curious about what she will say. It is refreshing to see a picture of a jaded Latina woman, who is so far from the stereotype. Also, I think having some knowledge of first generation immigrants is important to appreciate the nuance that makes the book worth reading. I could definitely relate to her comments about earning street-cred by being in the field, but choosing not to do that as she felt the bonus points for her reputation were not worth being something she wasn't 'living life based on other people's expectations'. Another such thing, as well, is the disdain expressed by her character for having so many people need her to know everything about her country of origin, then deride her and accuse her of not being authentic enough because she doesn't. For this, the book seemed at times like a list of grievances and explanations, but like with Martin Luther or something, they seemed necessary and I got a lot from them.

Equally good were the subtexts around the two idealistic men. The extent to which they are able to sell their souls to corporations and potentially give their lives in order to make a positive difference. The ability of Richard to convince himself that the community center would be a boon to the community even while being financed and used by an AIDS company, one with shady practices and which skirts around the US laws on first human trials.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unlike some other books ("Sarah's Key" is a prime example) in which chapters alternate between two different stories with one story being much more interesting than the other, both the stories in "Saving the World" were compelling. I enjoyed the back-and-forth story-lines because they were related in themes and commented brilliantly on each other. The framing story has a main character very similar to Julia Alvarez: a woman author native to the Dominican Republic now living in the United States. The character, Alma, is going through a crisis in her life. She has lost interest in the superficial family saga book that she has been contracted to write. Instead she becomes focused on an historical event involving another woman going through a similar crisis of confidence in life and its meaning. That woman, Isabel, was a real person, although nothing is known of her other than the fact she was present on an expedition from Spain to the New World in 1804. The purpose of the expedition was to introduce the smallpox vaccine to the Americas and eradicate the disease. Amazingly enough, this was done by transporting 22 orphan boys from Spain to the New World, using them as the necessary vaccine carriers. (They were inoculated in succession as the ship made its way across the Atlantic.) It was an audacious plan at the time ... and even more so to our modern sensibilities. The idea of using poor children, some as young as 3 years old, who were unable to consent or even understand what was happening to them seems grossly immoral. And yet isn't that done to a certain extent today by drug companies who test their new drugs in third world countries? Alma sees the connection because her husband is involved in a project near an AIDS clinic in the Dominican Republic. Both Alma's story and Isabel's raise interesting and provocative questions: What does it mean to "save the world"? Is it possible to act for good in the world without inadvertently hurting someone? Is a worthy end (the elimination of disease) a justification for dubious means?

[P.D.R. Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of those books composed of several layers, like a torte. In present day America we have Alma, turning fifty, depressed and lost. We have Helen, Alma's elderly neighbour making her last fight against cancer. Back in 1803 in Spain we have Dona Isabel Sendales Y Gomez, the only survivor in her family when the smallpox epidemic occurred, and the rectoress of an orphanage. How are they connected? By the men in their lives, all of whom are trying to save the world.

Alma's husband, Richard works for a large organization that helps the Third World. He gets the chance to have hands-on experience with a project in the Dominican Republic, Alma's home country. Part of the project is an AIDS clinic. Dona Isabel is asked to help a doctor, Don Francisco Xavier Balmis, director of the King's Expedition, use her orphan boys to carry the smallpox vaccine to the New World where an epidemic is raging. Helen's son comes home to help her die and sort himself out.

The novel focusses on the decisions the three women make. Alma decides to stay at home, find herself and finish researching about Dona Isabel and her smallpox carriers, letting Richard go by himself into a situation where he really does need her. Dona Isabel decides that her smallpox scarred life in Spain will never change and asks to go with her chosen boys to South America. She supports Don Francisco in order to keep the expedition going and save other from smallpox. Helen decides to die at home, without further treatment. The results of these decisions make for a story that explores how personal hurt, pain and anger can be turned into purposeful action, or not, and how saving the world can sometimes mean saving oneself.

'Saving the World' is a written in the present tense and a slow read, but it's worth the effort. It’s a good book for making the reader think.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lately, I am absolutely obsessed with everything Julia Alvarez has written, and this book is no exception. Alvarez offers two compelling narratives, alternating each chapter, one of which is set in the nineties in Vermont and the other set in the 1800's on a sea voyage from Spain to the colonies. With such disparate narratives, it's hard to believe the book works, but it does.

Amazingly, I found the everyday life of Alma, the protagonist in the more present-day narrative, to be more compelling than the historically-based narrative of Isabel and her journey with Balmis across the seas to bring the smallpox vaccine to the New World. However, I remained fascinated by the history revealed in the smallpox portion of the novel, especially the fact that twenty-two orphan boys risked their lives to carry the vaccine across an unforgiving sea (not that they were given much of a choice in the matter). As Alvarez asks in her afterword, "Must civilization always ride on the backs of those least able to defend themselves?" It's a heavy question, one that is handled with a deft hand in this narrative.

Still, Alma as a character won my heart, and I found myself rushing through the smallpox chapters in order to get back to her story (hence four stars instead of five). Overall, though, this novel is rendered with such care and insight, while resisting moralism at the same time. I found the ending unexpected yet resonant, and now I can't wait to read my next Alvarez novel.

Final note: The research that went into this narrative is absolutely astounding, and I highly recommend this novel for anyone interested in historical realistic fiction.

[Sara Espinosa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm so sorry to write this but this novel was just way too long and boring. Julia Alvarez is one of my favorite writers, having read How the García Girls Lost Their Accents and Yo!, but unfortunately this novel was just not doing it for me. I really tried to get into the story but the beginning and middle just dragged for the longest of pages. Alma was just not a relatable character and her first world problems were sometimes a bore. I found the Alma-Helen portion of the story to be a bit interesting but I feel like at the end it was just unresolved, or maybe I just missed that part of the novel. I feel like the climax of Alma's side came towards the end but it wasn't a slow build, it was very sudden, and unfortunately short. I actually found Isabel's part of the story more interesting. The fact that it's based on true events also peaked my interest, but I feel like the author had a lot of material and potential but this portion also dragged. I think she could have done so much more with the character of Isabel. I understand that maybe she wanted to stick to the true events side of historical fiction but it was just too technical for me at times. I like to read to engross myself in the story and be so drawn by it that I find myself making the time to read anytime I can. This book, however, was not that at all. I gave the novel 2 stars because I really enjoy Julia Alvarez's writing style but I feel like she could have done so much more.

[Phyllis · Rating 4 out of 5]

The latest in novels about the New World by the Dominican Republic woman -- now a professor in Vermont -- who burst into the landscape in 1991 with "How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents" (made into a popular motion picture. She has written several novels since, and I'm going to read every one!
This one is a novel within a novel: a Vermont author of Dominican birth refuses to go to the land of her birth with her husband when he is assigned by his non-governmental organization to build a clinic there. Instead, she stays home to work on a fictional version of the real expedition in the early 1800's by a Spanish doctor who takes smallpox vaccine to Latin America using orphan boys as carriers via vesicles on their arms [n.b. Ms. Alvarez used Spanish archives as her source]. The imagined travails of the modern-day writer in Vermont pale next to the problems faced by the rectoress accompanying the boys as they sail first to Puerto Rico, then to Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico, and the Philippines to save whole populations from the smallpox epidemic. And Ms. Alvarez curiously uses the third person when telling the modern story but the first person for the 19th-century woman who cares for the boys, which makes the historic woman much more sympathetic. I didn't like the Vermont woman....

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Saving the World was an interesting book, though not as good as How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, In The Time of the Butterflies, In the Name of Salomé, or ¡Yo!. There were a lot of disparate plot threads that didn't seem to fully connect together. As in ITNOS, Alvarez uses alternating Arabic and Roman-numeraled chapters to tell two stories in different timelines, only in this one, one of the stories is fictional even within the already-fictional world. (Alma, the main character of the Arabic-numeraled story, is writing the Roman-numeraled story.)
Isabel's story, this novel-within-the-novel, is the strongest part of the book. However, it would be even stronger if it were able to stretch out and fill an entire book instead of just half of one. There's a lot of summarizing in her later chapters, and I wish that had been more fleshed-out.
Meanwhile, Alma's story has three different semi-interesting plotlines, all of which feel thrown together unnaturally.
A story about neighbors helping their dying friend could work. So could one about an AIDS clinic/green center/terrorists in the Dominican Republic. So could one about mentally ill activists threatening people with "psychic AIDS" and "monkey pox." (Maybe.) It feels like the Isabel chapters needed to be a novel, and the Alma chapters could have been a series of (maybe) interconnected short stories, much like ¡Yo!.

[Sharon · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating book so far...alternating chapters of a present-day writer and her husband, with chapters of a book that she's writing about a Spanish scientist who sailed into The New World with a ship full of orphans and the rectoress to help stop the spread of smallpox.

Very interesting!

This one definitely grew on me, though I'm still not sure that I liked Alma, the protagonist of the story taking place in Vermont...

It was unusual and interesting to have a book that was two novels in one. I enjoyed and empathized with Isabel, the rectoress, and her journey with Don Francisco, the doctor and scientist, whose passion it was to cure the world of the deadly smallpox.

The parallels of Alma's husband, Richard, who traveled to Alma's own country to "do good" in the green movement, and the doctor whom Isabel admired but with whom she never got close, were interesting. As were, the parallels of Alma and Isabel sailing along figurative and literal seas.

A very well-written book, and I like that Alvarez also wove in the plight of the people in the D. R. whose lives are weighted down with injustices and comparisons to which their daily experiences fall short.

[Kristin · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely loved this book. I was first introduced to Julia Alvarez through her beautiful and tragic book, In the Time of Butterflies which takes place in the Dominican Republic. After having been to that country twice, I was very interested in reading something by a Dominican author. Saving the World was no less impressive. The author weaves together two stories that take place centuries apart. The modern story centers on Alma Rodriguez, a Dominican author in Vermont who is struggling to write a saga novel in the midst of her neighbor friend's cancer and her husband working on a green center in the DR. The other story takes place in the 1800s, focusing on Isabel, the lone woman who accompanied the Balmis voyage to bring the smallpox vaccine from Spain to the New World, using children as live carriers. The chapters alternate back and forth between the two stories, and I found this was a book I just couldn't put down. I would have to at least get to "the chapter after the next one" to find out what happened! A fantastic read!

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was the book I read after The Last Town on Earth and I wasn't nearly as impressed with it. It was a story about two women--one from current time and the other centuries before--and it skipped back and forth from one story to the other. One story was about the discovery of smallpox vaccine and it's dissemination to nations around the world using a small group of orphan boys who were vaccinated serialy (is that a word?) as they crossed the ocean. This kept the vaccine fresh so that when they got to a port they could vaccinate the people, recruit more "carriers" and go someplace else. The contemporary story was even less absorbing--something about a scientist and aids and a revolution in a south american country. I just wasn't gripped by it at all and had to struggle through to finish it. I don't know why I bothered--maybe because the other book was so good and I kept thinking I must be missing something here! Anyway, my advice would be definitely read The Last Town, but don't bother with this one!

[Janet · Rating 1 out of 5]

Had I been reading this book rather than listening to it on my commutes I would have quit. The protagonist, Alma,(her story awkwardly written in present tense) is suffering from writer's block and depression. She finds that one of her older, aging friends is dying from cancer, her husband is sent to her native land, the Dominican Republic, to develop an Aids vaccine under the guise of setting up a clinic for the natives. He is taken hostage. Meanwhile, instead of writing her overdue novel, Alma is obsessing over an expedition in the 1800s to New Spain where a lady, Isabella, along with a doctor, Don Francisco, led a group of orphan boys as carriers of a small pox vaccine..to inoculate the New World. Disgusting talk of vesicules, pus, etc. The reader is supposed to make the connection of the two epidemics. The book moves at a snail's pace. Alma is an irritating heroine. Her friend activist, Tara, is equally trite and irritating. Helen, her dying friend, a saint. I thought maybe I was missing something, so I read a NYT review. No, the reviewer and I were on the same page.

[Sandie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought I had read this so did not worry about having it ready for my book group. When I went to review it on the last, I had not read it. Thanks to the pandemic, I spent the day reading it. There are two stories here, one of a contemporary author Alma and the other of 19th century Isabel. I was most interested in Isabel's story, she goes on an expedition from Spain to New Spain, So. America , and the Philippines caring for some orphan boys, who get vaccinated with cow pox, from which vesicles will be harvested to vaccinate others. Alma's husband goes to the Dominican Republic to do good works, planting trees. The stories are tied together very lightly. I liked Isabel's story, which is centered on historical fact, Alma's was OK, but I did not like switching from one to the other. I would have preferred a shorter book with only Isabel's story. Nevertheless, a good and interesting read during this time of another pandemic and vaccinations.

[Karry · Rating 2 out of 5]

This story is told at two different times in history. One is told in present day and is not written well and we were so disappointed in the writing that we decided not to read that part at all. Instead we read the historical story of a woman who was convinced by a man to take some of the children in an orphanage to the "New World" as carriers of a the smallpox vaccine. She is a well-developed character as well as are most of the people in this story. She had not been a person anyone would like to change places with since she was the sole survivor of a Smallpox outbreak that killed her whole family. If the author had chosen just to write her story, it would have been a book that I would give a much higher rating, but taken as a whole, I could not give it the praise this part of it deserves.

[Janet Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

I ordered this book from the library just because I like the author - it turns out to be a great pandemic read.
Saving the World is about the extraordinary steps taken to bring the smallpox vaccine around the world - using orphan boys who are inoculated two at a time using the pustules from the last vaccinated boys - tag-team-like - throughout long ocean journeys. This story merges with the account of a frustrated writer whose husband is working in AIDS research in the Dominican Republic.
I was frustrated with the book at times -- seemed to go into great detail on some subjects but then skip over essential subjects. And I was a bit confused at times - a map showing stops along the journey would have been useful. But I found myself compelled by the book, even if I did skim read some sections.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've just reread this, I think the first time was '06? Was lucky to work with Alvarez on a different booksinging in '08. Honestly she is all around amazing!

In Saving the World we follow the parallel lives of Alma and Isabella. Alma is a contemporary author struggling with her next big book (under contract, and well past deadline) when her personal life gets flipped upside down. Isabella is a 19th century spinster who finds herself (mid spinster hood) sailing across the world with a ship full of orphans carrying the first small pox vaccine. Alma is obsessed with Isabella's story. The chapters rotate as the chaos in each of their lives unfold. While 200 years separate these two women, there are many parallels to be found and Alma finds the strength she needs through Isabella.

[Carolyn S · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book to show how two men could try to save the world with curing disease. The two men are two hundred years apart. I was drawn into this writer that had a problem starting a novel that she had already gotten $50,000 upfront. The weaving between the two women, Alma and Isabel, is so well written. You can feel the pain and suffering along with the joys, of both women.
Very different from other books I have liked. A real page turner for sure!
I did look up Isabel after reading this book to see how she really helped with the vaccination of smallpox in South America using her 22 orphanswho carried the virus from Spain. Very interesting and something I would never have know about.

[Marvin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Latina writer suffering depression & failure to complete a contracted novel stays behind in Vermont as her husband goes to the Dominican Republic, her home country, to manage an environmental project. The writer's interest shifts from the multigenerational Latina saga she's supposed to be writing to the story of a woman, a preceptress of an orphanage in Spain, who participates in an expedition in 1803-5 to carry a smallpox vaccination around the world. In both cases, the principal actors must balance their impulse to "save the world" against commitments to personal loved ones. A pretty strong novel recommended by Darlene but one whose style somehow didn't particularly appeal to me.