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doulicia 's review for:
The Book of Unknown Americans
by Cristina Henríquez
I'm really struggling with the rating for this book. It was well written and addressed an important topic (Central and South American immigration to the U.S.), but I didn't like/enjoy it. It was full of foreboding, and stressful to read.
I appreciated the structure, which alternated between two main narrators, Alma, the wife and mother in a family that emigrates from Mexico, and Mayor, the teenage son of Panamanians. They are neighbors in an apartment building that caters to Latin American immigrants. They tell the central story of the book -- Alma's family's journey to Delaware because that was where her husband, Arturo, found a an employment sponsor for their visa. Alma and Arturo want to enroll their 14-year-old daughter Maribel in a school for children with special needs to see if she can recover after a traumatic brain injury. Between Alma's and Mayor's alternating narratives are short chapters where each of the apartment building's other residents tell their stories, creating a patchwork explanation of why and how people start over in new countries.
I don't know if Henriquez's portrayal of the confusion and frustration associated with arriving in a new country with a language you don't speak is accurate, but it felt believable and bewildering. The fraught conditions of Alma's and Arturo's life in the U.S., from his horrible working conditions, to Maribel's vulnerability, were too much to read page after page. It doesn't make the book "bad," but it made it unpleasant to read.
I appreciated the structure, which alternated between two main narrators, Alma, the wife and mother in a family that emigrates from Mexico, and Mayor, the teenage son of Panamanians. They are neighbors in an apartment building that caters to Latin American immigrants. They tell the central story of the book -- Alma's family's journey to Delaware because that was where her husband, Arturo, found a an employment sponsor for their visa. Alma and Arturo want to enroll their 14-year-old daughter Maribel in a school for children with special needs to see if she can recover after a traumatic brain injury. Between Alma's and Mayor's alternating narratives are short chapters where each of the apartment building's other residents tell their stories, creating a patchwork explanation of why and how people start over in new countries.
I don't know if Henriquez's portrayal of the confusion and frustration associated with arriving in a new country with a language you don't speak is accurate, but it felt believable and bewildering. The fraught conditions of Alma's and Arturo's life in the U.S., from his horrible working conditions, to Maribel's vulnerability, were too much to read page after page. It doesn't make the book "bad," but it made it unpleasant to read.