Sad to say, but I give this book a 3 out of 5 stars. I was intrigued and hooked in the beginning but the story eventually slowed down for me. Every day, I looked forward to picking up the book and read all morning, but I lost that feeling towards the middle of the story. The concept of this particular story is very interesting and emotional, but I believe the way it was told could have been done a little better.
This novel follows Lydia Quixano Perez and her son, Luca, in the Mexico city of Acapulco after tragedy suddenly happens to their immediate family. Lydia's husband is a journalist who wrote an article about the drug cartel in this city and because of this publication, the drug cartel goes after Lydia's family. This unfortunate situation causes Lydia to take Luca with her to leave her home and find a safe way to get to the United States alive.
Now as someone who is of the Spanish race, I felt sad and sympathetic with the chapters describing the journey of Lydia and Luca becoming migrants and different characters they met along the way who are fellow migrants as well. However, I am very fortunate and blessed to not have to go through the migrant/immigration process and the difficult situations that were presented in this book. When this book first came out, there were a lot of controversies because the author is white writing about Mexican migrants' experiences in hopes of educating readers on this topic. I think the problem with this is that the book is written in a way as if Jeanine personally went through that experience and obviously she did not. People would also not feel upset if Jeanine were a part of the Spanish race, however, this biased opinion is taking away the message or exposure Jeanine was trying to make her readers aware of. With that being said, I feel 50/50 with this book as a whole.
While reading this book, I also found myself not in love with her writing. In the beginning, I admired Jeanine's way of describing the simplest things in delicate detail and then it got lost in the transition of the story and made me lose interest. It also started to sound a little repetitive with the way she would start sentences, especially with the word, "so" a lot, coming off as if she's telling just a casual story in a nonchalant way, taking away the significance and power of storytelling and a sensitive topic. There are some harsh events that take place with Lydia and other characters too during their journey and again, it all felt too slow. I personally feel that the build-up was mainly in the beginning as a page-turner and lost that momentum along the way. I became curious only to see how the adventure would end.
In any novel that revolves around a diverse and specific ethnicity, as a reader, you expect to come across dialogue or paragraphs with the language written in its context. Jeanine used Spanish throughout the entire story, but sometimes, she did not translate its meaning. Yes, I am Spanish, but I am one of the unfortunate Puerto Ricans who did not learn her native tongue. Obviously, non-Spanish people are probably going to pick up this book and although a good reader would take notes and look up vocabulary words they are not sure of what it means, it helps, specifically with a different language, to simply write its translation as the following sentence.
This is my first negative review for a book, at least on the blog, but I understand why there is controversy about it and, at the same time, why controversy is not necessary. If you are curious as to why I gave American Dirt a "3", or are interested in this story, then give it a read! Maybe you will feel differently than I do and we can discuss our thoughts together!
Enjoy and happy reading!
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