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3.82 AVERAGE
3.82 AVERAGE
emotional
mysterious
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I loved the story, loved the subject, loved the intimate look at a composed family and a marriage falling apart. The writing however felt too aware of itself, actively trying to be beautifully-written. And it was very beautifully written, but I really cannot believe that a 10 year old boy would speak like that. I agree with other reviews on the shortcomings of this book, but I still hold it in high-esteem because the book was just so different. I love experimental forms of literature! Even if it did come off a bit pedantic and even if I wish the story had focused more on the deportation of children, I still really enjoyed reading this novel.
Then, the next morning, we do something entirely predictable, at least for people like us--foreign but not entirely so--which is to play "Graceland" over and over as we cross Memphis into Graceland, trying to figure out where the Mississippi Delta is, exactly, and why it might shine like a national guitar, or if the lyrics even say "national guitar." The boy thinks it's "rational" guitar, but I don't think he has it right. Our entrance, played against the background of the song, has an epic quality, but of the quiet sort. Like a war being lost silently but with resilience.
A family of four sets out on a road trip from New York to the southeastern corner of Arizona, where the Apaches made their last free home. The drive is leisurely, a last family vacation before they split, the man to a job in Arizona, where he will live with his son, the woman and her daughter returning to New York. As they travel, they explore the history of the end of freedom for the last indigenous tribes of America, and the woman has an added concern; she had been helping asylum seekers and immigrants in New York as a translator and she hopes to find two girls who have disappeared for their desperate mother. The girls were making the desperate journey from central America to her when they vanished.
This is a story about family, about the troubled history of the United States and about the disaster of our southern border. There's a dreamy, elegiac quality to the writing that had me rereading paragraphs as I went. It's a gorgeous book and I think its one we'll still be reading decades from now.
A family of four sets out on a road trip from New York to the southeastern corner of Arizona, where the Apaches made their last free home. The drive is leisurely, a last family vacation before they split, the man to a job in Arizona, where he will live with his son, the woman and her daughter returning to New York. As they travel, they explore the history of the end of freedom for the last indigenous tribes of America, and the woman has an added concern; she had been helping asylum seekers and immigrants in New York as a translator and she hopes to find two girls who have disappeared for their desperate mother. The girls were making the desperate journey from central America to her when they vanished.
This is a story about family, about the troubled history of the United States and about the disaster of our southern border. There's a dreamy, elegiac quality to the writing that had me rereading paragraphs as I went. It's a gorgeous book and I think its one we'll still be reading decades from now.
The first half is slow, but be patient. It's worth the wait.
This is a quiet, timely, inventive book that sneaks up on you (or at least it did on me). The story of a family driving cross country while the parents' marriage falls apart and immigrant children flee their homelands and come to the US border, only to be imprisoned or sent home, the book meanders at times, tells stories, gets into the mother's and son's heads, makes use of photos, inventories of boxes brought on the trip, a book called "Elegies for Lost Children" and ends up in a surprisingly moving place by the end. Beautiful writing that forced me to slow down and take it all in.
Holy Christmas!
Brilliant and harrowing.
A family road trip, the mother and a father on separate missions, though both intent on documenting their lives. A ten year old boy, and his five year five old sister. Both children from different marriages. Devoted to one another, as their parents are not.
Graceland, Elvis, Apaches, Eagle Warriors - dreams, hallucinations, and the echoes of dreams, and hallucinations.
The American Southwest. A ride on the Beast bringing immigrants to the desert crossing.
Lost children, and a stream of consciousness nightmare in luminous prose.
Amazing, amazing, amazing.
Brilliant and harrowing.
A family road trip, the mother and a father on separate missions, though both intent on documenting their lives. A ten year old boy, and his five year five old sister. Both children from different marriages. Devoted to one another, as their parents are not.
Graceland, Elvis, Apaches, Eagle Warriors - dreams, hallucinations, and the echoes of dreams, and hallucinations.
The American Southwest. A ride on the Beast bringing immigrants to the desert crossing.
Lost children, and a stream of consciousness nightmare in luminous prose.
Amazing, amazing, amazing.
This book about a family taking a trip from NYC to the Southwest is hard for me to review. The writing itself is very good and genuinely moving in spots. On the other hand, I came to hate the characters and felt that the 10-year-old boy wasn't written the way a 10-year-old boy talks.
The story is interwoven with the story of children making their way across Mexico to the US border. For me, the author failed to make me care about their fate.
A lot of the book takes place in the car on the road with a mom, dad, 10-year-0ld boy, and a five-year-old girl from the point of view of the mom. I found both parents to be insufferable.
The author takes a lot of time to converse with prior literature in the book, which was interesting.
Toward the end of the book, there was a sentence that goes for something like 20 pages. I didn't really see the point of this.
For me, this book was a beautiful but failed experiment.
The story is interwoven with the story of children making their way across Mexico to the US border. For me, the author failed to make me care about their fate.
A lot of the book takes place in the car on the road with a mom, dad, 10-year-0ld boy, and a five-year-old girl from the point of view of the mom. I found both parents to be insufferable.
The author takes a lot of time to converse with prior literature in the book, which was interesting.
Toward the end of the book, there was a sentence that goes for something like 20 pages. I didn't really see the point of this.
For me, this book was a beautiful but failed experiment.
This Mexican experimental author’s first English-language novel is stunningly observant & maddeningly self-reflexive. Unhappy NY couple take off on a road-trip to the southern border with their absurdly smart toddlers. (Their audiobook is Lord of the Flies.) The parents are sorta sound journalists. She’s intent on capturing migrant children on tape. The crumbling marriage is the focus; the detained & deported children merely echoes. I guess that’s the point—is storytelling only background noise to lived experiences? Dazzling, but also pretentious. (A 30-page sentence?) It’s a long trip; do we have to talk about Sontag the whole way?
adventurous
challenging
emotional
sad
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Listening to this novel was a bumpy ride for me. Loved it, hated it. Loved it, hated it. Firstly, yes- it is beautifully written, well planned, exquisitely layered (heartbreaking and infuriating stories within stories), deserving of the praise, etc., etc. But man… the parents have some qualities I apparently have a real hard time swallowing. They are too... “cultured,” I guess? Enough with the name dropping of writers and musicians and dancers and artists and whoever else. Sheesh. And their treatment of their kids... so distant and selfish so much of the time. I realize this was by design, part of the Story and all, but it was enough that I almost quit it. And then I thought there may be some clarity (and redemption?) when the son narrates, admitting his parents’ shortcomings at one point. It wasn’t long after that when I got hung up on how he seemed MUCH too mature for a 10-year-old. ANYWAYS… lots of good things and lots of bad… Glad I finished, relieved I’m done.