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A review by kris_mccracken
American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins
3.0
I get the whole discussion around authenticity and who can tell whose stories, but I'm going to side step it here. It would be disingenuous of me to have it fundamentally impact my score, given that I routinely rate highly works by men and women evoking characters and narratives of worlds far beyond their own.
So, the novel. Yeah, a little heavy on the cliché. A bit "Mexico by numbers", but not in any significantly more egregious way that - for example - Yuri Herrera's most recent novels have done. It moves along at a decent pace, and is too heavy handed for my tastes. Still, I've have it rated somewhere around 2.5 leaning towards 3 stars.
So, the novel. Yeah, a little heavy on the cliché. A bit "Mexico by numbers", but not in any significantly more egregious way that - for example - Yuri Herrera's most recent novels have done. It moves along at a decent pace, and is too heavy handed for my tastes. Still, I've have it rated somewhere around 2.5 leaning towards 3 stars.