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lavaly_1's review against another edition
4.0
Graphic: Trafficking and Deportation
Minor: Injury/Injury detail
princessdana36's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Racism, Animal death, Classism, Deportation, Excrement, and Grief
Minor: War
readandfindout's review against another edition
4.25
Themes: 4 stars
Perspective: 5 stars
Graphic: Excrement, Confinement, Vomit, Injury/Injury detail, Deportation, Racism, Abandonment, and Police brutality
Moderate: Domestic abuse and Alcoholism
alexisgarcia's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Alcohol, Gun violence, Injury/Injury detail, Police brutality, Violence, Classism, Death, Deportation, Cursing, Excrement, Grief, Vomit, and Blood
ladypolf's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Abandonment and Deportation
Moderate: Xenophobia, Vomit, Alcohol, Cursing, Death, and Confinement
Minor: Excrement, Gun violence, Violence, Blood, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, and War
knkoch's review against another edition
5.0
Javier Zamora writes here of his journey from El Salvador to the US, and as a white American whose citizenship has never been front of mind, I really needed to read this account. Zamora was born the same year I was and made this trek at age 9, so it was uncomfortably easy to think back on myself at the same age, during the same era, and attempt to place my child-self in his shoes.
I liked that Zamora wrote from the perspective of his childhood mindset during the journey, as it fully embedded me in his experience. It must have been challenging, both in terms of the trauma he had to relive and the difficulty in recounting so much detail. He travels unaccompanied by relatives, but his relationships with the people in his group are moving and provide a sense of the adult experience, too.
This was dramatic without exaggeration, painful, visceral, unforgettable, and yet something untold thousands of people have gone through and are still going through. Truly a book everyone (especially US citizens) should bear witness to, and the kind of account that should foster deep, human empathy for an experience too often flattened into an impersonal political conflict.
Graphic: Vomit, Deportation, Forced institutionalization, and Injury/Injury detail
Moderate: Xenophobia, Excrement, and Sexual harassment
This is a migrant story, with brutal travels through the desert. Medical trauma/children suffering:caseythereader's review against another edition
4.0
Graphic: Cursing, Injury/Injury detail, Police brutality, Racism, Xenophobia, Deportation, Abandonment, Blood, Excrement, Grief, and Vomit
ruthypoo2's review against another edition
5.0
Minor: Injury/Injury detail
savvylit's review against another edition
4.75
This entire memoir is told through Zamora's perspective as a nine-year-old child. The covert border crossings that he must make become even more harrowing when viewed through his young eyes. Javier is so often powerless due to his age - he has to trust that the coyotes will do as they say and take him across borders safely. He has to trust the other folks in his group of migrantes to advocate for him. Javier wavers between feeling pure joy at the thought of reuniting with his parents and total exhaustion and fear due to the journey's length and extreme conditions. His youth is evident on every page - his fear of using the toilet alone, his watching a lizard he calls Paula, his naming of dangerous cacti as "fuzzies" or "spikies." It's incredibly devastating to experience Javier's sweet naivete in juxtaposition with the constant danger.
However, Solito is so much more than a harrowing tale of a dangerous journey. It's also a testament to found families and the kindness of others. As the journey progresses, Javier becomes close with a mother and daughter, Patricia & Carla, and their friend Chino. Chino and Patricia end up helping Javier every step of the way as surrogate parents. They make sure that Javier has food and water, they keep him warm, they tie his shoes, they escort him when it's time to bathe so he won't be alone... The love that the four of them develop for one another and the ways that they support each other throughout Solito is spectacular and deeply moving.
Ultimately, Solito is perhaps one of the most gut-wrenching and difficult memoirs that I have ever read. Again, any retelling of a journey even slightly similar to Javier's would be an emotional read. But seeing the world through his nine-year-old eyes is what really makes this story unforgettable.
Graphic: Injury/Injury detail and Deportation
kshertz's review against another edition
5.0
Graphic: Violence, Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Racism, Body horror, Cultural appropriation, Confinement, Abandonment, Blood, Deportation, Trafficking, and Police brutality