Julia Alvarez repeats that phrase throughout Saving the World. Recommended by my dad, I read this book while recovering from my herniated disk. Masterfully piecing her words, Alvarez writes parallel stories of two women, two centuries apart.
A personal message I received from the book dealt with the title. Alvarez shows that we, especially women, can "save the world" through our nurturing and loyalty to relationships. While the male characters take flamboyant and obvious actions to save their world, the women at their side do so in a more subtle yet powerful manner.
It's a long book, full of beautiful language and scenes. There are very few books that have played with my emotions, but this one had me choked up at the end. Partly because it was over. My favorite passage:
I suppose only an almighty God can see all of our differing stories. Only He can love each narrow, aggrieved, and petty self and applaud each time one of us, inflamed by love or enlarged by loss, manages to see briefly beyond the confines of our own self-interest into another's being. I see you. You are not alone. We are here together.
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