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3.82 AVERAGE
3.82 AVERAGE
adventurous
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
2 stars for plot, add one for occasional beautiful prose. But after reading for a week and only getting to 35% (and not because it’s a super long book), I’m giving up.
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
This got long and tedious. Once the 10 year old started talking it became tortuous.
slow-paced
Winner of the Dublin Literary Award and longlisted for both the Booker and Women's Fiction prizes, this is a literary heavyweight. Following in the great tradition of the Great American Road trip, the novel features a blended family of 2 adults and 2 children (all anonymized) travelling from New York to Arizona. Both parents, who are documentarians, have conflicting reasons for this journey; the mother wants to document the growing child refugee crisis on the US border and create an archive of the missing refugee children. Her husband is obsessed with the US-Apache conflict of the mid 1800s and wants to capture the sounds and echoes of the Apacheria landscape in Arizona, a former Apache territory.
This book is also about a marriage slowly falling apart. The first part is the mothers narrative, the second part is told from the son's point of view. The reader is not explicitly told why the relationship is broken, we just get the impression of a long goodbye. Interspersed with these 2 narratives is a story within a story called "Elegies for Lost Children''. a fictional story about 6 children who travel on the infamous La Bestia train from Mexico to the US border. The book is also overlaid with several literary and cultural references and a collection of polaroid photos, taken by the 10 yr old son.
The author began writing this book in 2014, at a time when the numbers of unaccompanied minors travelling to the US surged to approx. 80,000 per year, double the 2013 figure. These children came mainly from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Luiselli herself is an advocate for child refugees and works to improve the plight of child refugees in the US.
This is a very difficult book to review. On one hand I admire the academic achievement of this book but did I enjoy it? I felt overwhelmed at times by the intertextual style of the novel and the sheer weight of the cultural references. The book was at its strongest when it focused on the fraying family relationship, and I would have liked more of this. While this is undoubtedly an ambitious book, I found it hard work. 3.5 *
I'm gonna need a week to process this. And also to reread it! Masterpiece of a work.
The main story is about a mother with a daughter and her (not quite new anymore) husband and his son. The family has been together four years. And the couple is in the verge of breaking up. They are on a road trip together across the country.
No names are used - just boy/girl and husband/wife or she/he. We hear from the wife and the boy as narrators.
The structure mimics the boxes they carry - 7 in all. There's a ton of symbolism there and I'm sure a reread would reveal even more.
The author does a masterful job of weaving together so many other texts and allusions - through the stories of Indians, especially Apaches and Geronimo, and the story of two lost migrant children as well as a book in a book they are reading called The Lost Elegies.
The book has that rare quality of feeling so timely (migrant children crisis) and yet timeless. I will definitely be reading again.
The main story is about a mother with a daughter and her (not quite new anymore) husband and his son. The family has been together four years. And the couple is in the verge of breaking up. They are on a road trip together across the country.
No names are used - just boy/girl and husband/wife or she/he. We hear from the wife and the boy as narrators.
The structure mimics the boxes they carry - 7 in all. There's a ton of symbolism there and I'm sure a reread would reveal even more.
The author does a masterful job of weaving together so many other texts and allusions - through the stories of Indians, especially Apaches and Geronimo, and the story of two lost migrant children as well as a book in a book they are reading called The Lost Elegies.
The book has that rare quality of feeling so timely (migrant children crisis) and yet timeless. I will definitely be reading again.
adventurous
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-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:
Complicated
adventurous
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes