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kelseymckim's review
1.0
I read this book for a class, and it just wasn't my thing. I found the voice extremely hard to connect to until after I listened to a NPR interview with the author (Bowden) and got a sense of his personality and manner of speaking. This book is designed to convey a sense or mood to the reader more so than a narrative or historical account of the drug cartel problems in Juarez, so it was a stylistic choice to use such an... ungrounded (for lack of a better word) voice, but that just didn't connect with me.
I'm not familiar with the situation in Juarez, so the lack of background information left me confused and scrambling to keep up.
The illustrations were impressive in terms of detail and technique, and did in most cases "illuminate" the text. However, sometimes I found them confusing or unclear, which was distracting.
Then again, someone else could make all of the same observations and love the book, it missed its target on me.
I'm not familiar with the situation in Juarez, so the lack of background information left me confused and scrambling to keep up.
The illustrations were impressive in terms of detail and technique, and did in most cases "illuminate" the text. However, sometimes I found them confusing or unclear, which was distracting.
Then again, someone else could make all of the same observations and love the book, it missed its target on me.
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