jnsaltzman 's review for:

The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle

2.0

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This book has interesting themes of consumerism and hypocrisy, and starts off giving a heart-wrenching look at the vulnerability of illegal immigrants in America. These themes are quickly drowned out by misery porn, un-sympathetic characters and a lack of character growth. The white people are too hypocritical - and by the end of the book, completely unbelievable as characters - to care about. They spend their days fighting for animal rights and the environment, to the point that the man seems to care only for animals and not for people at all. Throughout the book, nothing good happens to the Mexican immigrants, and no hope is ever found. The book ends abruptly, leaving very few questions answered, in a vague and forced reconciliation between characters that hardly interacted and who had no cause throughout the book to have grown enough to be able to reconcile. On top of this, the use of domestic violence and sexual assault is sensational and unrealistic, which I found to be offensive.