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I wanted to read this novel because of the praise and high ratings by a number of my trusted ŷ������ friends. Then just before I started to read it, I became aware of the criticisms in both the literary and press at large and I made the decision not to read any more of those articles until I finished the book. You’ll have to read the criticisms for yourself and decide whether you think the book is worth reading.

In spite of everything said about the novel, I found it to be riveting, informative, suspenseful, heartbreaking and hard to put down . It’s 400 pages and I read it in two days. It’s the harrowing journey of migrants from Mexico, running for their lives, not to find a better life with more opportunity, but running to save their lives. There’s so much out there on this, you can easily find enough on the plot and characters, so I’m not going to talk about those here. I will say that the grief, the fear, the uncertainty, what people will do to save their loved ones and themselves was impactful. I found the last third of the book especially gripping.

There are very few perfect books and few that meet up to the hype. While this isn’t one of them, I think this novel has a lot to offer. Some of the criticisms may certainly be valid, but they didn’t diminish the importance or relevance of the story, at least not for me. If nothing else, hopefully productive conversations and awareness will be generated about the issues that the critics raise, as well as the timely issue of immigration.

I read this with Diane and Esil and I so much appreciated having them to discuss this with.