American Dirt

I guess I am in the minority among my Goodreads friends as I was not drawn into this novel. I was hoping to feel transported to Mexico and to get a sense of what the journey to the US might be like. I didn’t get a strong sense of place and I wonder if the author has actually been there. My favorite character was Luca by far. Some of the other characters who were traveling with them seemed flat. I plan to read Devil’s Highway to compare and contrast.

Book #46: COVID Hit, Christine's selection, which took place via Zoom. Christine arranged for the author to attend the meeting - incredible!

Great book all around.

It's great to be starting out a new year with a 5-start book that gets a place on my highly recommended book shelf. A page - turner, it combines the fears and joys of a mother and son going through one of the most extraordinary journeys possible. If there's a book you read this year, make it this one!

American Dirt is a social issues thriller. I felt that combination worked for me. Lydia is removed from the migrants that she sees on the news, but really she isn’t. That made me consider the perspective we have of our own lives and how it could change in a moment. Cummins puts a different face on the Mexican immigration with Lydia and that worked for me as I started somewhere different than in the middle of a refugee Story, we start at the beginning. I liked the interesting mix of characters and how they met. The leap of faith or desperation onto the trains to try to escape and how they helped each other. The courage and desperation of the children and how they connected with each other in such a stoic way that showed their optimism and fragile self. Particularly when the little boy BeBe died from an Asthmatic attack. He did so much that enabled the others to escape. This book highlights how impossible it is to have a happy life living amongst such organised evil. At some point you will be effected. After reading the book I looked at an interesting article, how so many people felt the book should have been written by a non white person and Cummins missed the Mark or the point of the book. I cannot work that out. Obviously she wrote the book and set the goals she wanted. Apparently the book had a lot of negative press because of that. Lydia loves her family deeply and is devasted by their murder at the hands of the cartel. She is particularly heartbroken by the loss of Sebastián, when she retrieves the car keys from his corpse: “She claps a hand over her mouth because she has a feeling the essential part of herself might fall out”. Sebastian, was instrumental in what happened. He wrote the article and Lydia read it before publication. They both believed Javier would handle the article and he did till his daughter was sent the article and killed herself. That was a clever twist and catapulted Lydia into her journey challenging topic in a very human way. Thank you for putting this forward Cynthia. There was a clever twist and catapulted Lydia into her journey. Excellent book.