A review by michellegotto
The Beast: Riding the Rails and Dodging Narcos on the Migrant Trail by Óscar Martínez

5.0

Like Katherine Boo's "Behind the Beautiful Forevers" and Sheri Fink's "Five Days at Memorial," Oscar Martinez's astonishing book reads like a captivating thriller. Martinez spent two years riding the rails and following the migrant trail through Mexico, witnessing the hardships and traumas that migrants suffer as they try to make their way to the United States. Over a thousand miles, on a train that claims lives and limbs, avoiding robbers, rapists, and kidnappers, paying taxes to narcos and coyotes, only to find that they have to battle the border.

But why? Why do they do it? If they are willing to endure these torments, what must they be escaping? This book is a must read. Amazing.