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stellahadz's review against another edition
inspiring
sad
slow-paced
4.5
This is one of the best-written, most powerful memoirs I've ever read. Zamora shares the painful details of what he endured on his journey along with his "second family," the core group of people he traveled with, but he also talks about the jokes they told, the nicknames they called each other, and the food they enjoyed together. This makes the story feel even realer and adds an extra emotional punch to the sad parts; when he talks about wanting to cuddle with his parents, feels shy about changing clothes in front of people, or reminisces about his favorite cartoons, it's a sobering reminder that he's just a kid, and already he's going through things that most people will never have to. The beginning of the story had me completely hooked; I absolutely loved hearing how he spoke about his grandparents and his aunt, the relatives he grew up with in El Salvador. I listened to the audiobook version, which I highly recommend.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Deportation and Forced institutionalization
Moderate: Excrement, Body shaming, Classism, Domestic abuse, and Vomit
knkoch's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
I read this for a local book club focused on race and own-voices writing on various BIPOC experiences in the US. This is such a well-made book and I’m glad it was selected.
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.
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.
Content Warnings
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:kshertz's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
I can’t say enough good things about this book. This story is so raw and true. The journey is so brutal for such a small child. The trauma and the pain is felt on the page. This author puts it all out there and I am grateful. It allows me to share with my students what kids their age are going through and continue to go through. For some of them, they can also feel less alone reading this book. I want every teen to know this authors name and story so they can be a generation that doesn’t allow for false rhetoric to persist around those coming across fake borders. Amazing book. Have everyone you know read it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Racism, Body horror, Cultural appropriation, Confinement, Abandonment, Blood, Deportation, Trafficking, and Police brutality
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