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bookymcbookshelf 's review for:

The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle
4.0

This book is a little torture porn and a little Stephen King's Roadwork. I did not like Roadwork, but I do like this. From a technical standpoint this is a well written book. Yes, I will give that it is an oversimplifciation of attitudes of immigration but I think that Boyle does that purposely to lampoon the thoughts and motives of the well-to-do liberal (and not-so-liberal) white Californians. I think that is the point.

On the other side of the coin where we take shelter with our Mexican protagonists: it is unrelenting torture in the form of exceedingly bad luck. There is no break for them. From the beginning of the novel to the end: they're spinning their wheels to simply live.

Is this book presenting a solution? I don't think it needs to and I definitely wouldn't want it to. The one takeaway is: we're all people just trying to live.