Mari Fraire

I expected a lot from this book as highly as it was rated, but I was greatly disappointed. For anyone that has ongoing anxiety or depression it really will send you back into a pit- that depressing. It seemed to be missing something, and the characters were simply uninteresting with little to do in her personal story. For a female protagonist it seemed like she did very little to help herself in her identity crisis. Do not recommend.

Coming from a family of immigrants this book hit very close to home. Although we were not running from the cartels we did run from the poverty and lack of opportunities hoping El Norte would bring us what we did not have. However, everything is not a fairy tale. Lydia took a job cleaning houses and Luca was unable to enter a geography bee where he would not be recognized if he won. The point being that even though we escape the hardships of a bad place we encounter more obstacles in a new place. Immigrants take low paying hard labor jobs, we are unable to further our education due to the high costs of out of state tuition even for a community college of no prestige, and we continue to be oppressed by those who think they are better simply because they were born in the country. Great read depicting the reality of the journey of immigrants for a better life.

So far I’m on chapter 16 and no hints about the darn bbq mentioned every other sentence are made, what happened?? Who knows. Super drawn out, listening in audiobook and really don’t like the narrator for musician and family. Perhaps it is better if read than listened to. Will update once book is finished.