Reviews tagging 'Police brutality'

American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins

47 reviews

beth_simmons's review against another edition

challenging dark informative tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

I found this book fascinating and challenging, intense and disturbing. I couldn't put it down, but I often wanted to. This one will stick with me. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gun violence, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Violence, Police brutality, Trafficking, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Death of parent, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Vomit and Deportation

amateur_bookworm's review against another edition

informative inspiring sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

My summary:

Cartel violence shatters Lydia’s serene life in Acapulco when her entire family is massacred at her niece’s quinceañera, leaving only her and her eight year old son, Luca, as survivors. Lydia’s husband, Sebastián, was a journalist covering the cartels in their state. And Lydia had unwittingly befriended a customer, Javier, in her bookstore who turned out to be the cartel leader. Sebastián just recently published an exposé of Javier being the head of the cartel. And now, in the wake of this tragedy, Lydia and Luca must leave everything behind and flee towards the US, the only place Lydia feels they may be safe from Javier’s reach. 

My thoughts: 

The horrific opening scene pulled me so deeply and immediately into this story. This book is tragic and heartbreaking and I was riddled with anxiety the entire time for Lydia and Luca, as well as the girls they meet along the way. 

This was tough to read but also I could hardly put it down. It felt a bit like driving past a terrible car accident when you can’t help but stare at it. 

This is not a light-hearted or feel-good story, but I was completely engrossed despite the macabre theme. It’s very insightful and there is a bit of hope woven through the tragedy. It’s a tough topic and it’s handled well. It really makes me more empathic to people fleeing the only lives they’ve ever known for a chance at a safer and better place. 

Mostly, this book makes me really thankful to have the privilege of having been born in the US and lived here my entire life. As much as this country has become somewhat of a disgrace to me recently, this book is a pretty stark reminder that it’s still one of the safest countries in the world to live in. I definitely have a deeper appreciation of the struggle that migrants endure on their journey, knowing the odds are stacked against them to simply set foot on the soil in this country that I definitely take for granted. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gun violence, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Violence, Police brutality, Trafficking, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Classism, and Deportation

ngoodenb's review against another edition

challenging emotional tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child death, Confinement, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gun violence, Hate crime, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Blood, Police brutality, Grief, Abortion, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Sexual harassment, Classism, and Deportation

Minor: Violence, Trafficking, Stalking, and War

strawberrypinch's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Confinement, Death, Gun violence, Violence, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Kidnapping, Grief, Mass/school shootings, Death of parent, and Deportation

Moderate: Miscarriage, Misogyny, Racism, Rape, Sexual violence, Blood, Trafficking, Pregnancy, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Cancer, Cursing, Drug abuse, Infidelity, Suicidal thoughts, Stalking, Abandonment, and Alcohol

lay_kone's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Gun violence, Miscarriage, Panic attacks/disorders, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Toxic relationship, Violence, Blood, Vomit, Police brutality, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Injury/Injury detail, and Deportation

missai's review

adventurous sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

An intimate, action-packed exploration of what it takes to make the treacherous journey across Mexico and to the U.S. border. This book illustrates the mentality and resolve required to literally leave everything behind in search of a better life. It also shows how losing everything, being driven to rock bottom, makes even the risk of death seem inconsequential. The characters we meet shed their identities, and at times their humanity, to survive just one more day, one more mile.

Unfortunately, this book falls into the paradoxically "sanitized-yet-still-trauma-porn" category that is endemic in women's historical fiction. One could argue that the numbness experienced by the characters is mirrored in the reader's own experience, where every new terrible thing is no longer shocking. To me, though, this concept wasn't executed well enough, and reads as more of a stylistic issue, which extends to other areas of the writing.

Narrated from third-person, the POV sporadically jumps around to various characters outside the main one. Consequently, all of the perspectives are watered down. The son's POV felt contrived and didn't add any emotional depth for me. Once the twins were introduced, I actually found the main character's plot line wholly uninteresting and wanted to know more about the girls. They experience so much intimate trauma that is largely brushed aside and used as a plot device.

And I have issues with the world building in general. I didn't come out of this novel feeling like I learned much about how cartels operate, how migrants navigate the "legal" systems in Mexico, or how U.S. government decisions regarding the border impacted migrants' journeys. All of these elements are included superficially, so I was disappointed that the novel didn't add any depth to my existing understanding of these topics. It also rubbed me the wrong way how the story romanticized the cartel leader; I'm all for humanizing villains, but it was done in a light-handed way that I think leans more towards problematic than nuanced.

Overall, the prose was good and so was the narration, but American Dirt is certainly not the tell-all on Mexican migrants' experiences the way positive reviews make it out to be. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood and Trafficking

Moderate: Child death, Death, Rape, Sexual assault, Suicide, Violence, Police brutality, and Kidnapping

Minor: Adult/minor relationship, Body horror, Gun violence, Misogyny, Death of parent, Murder, and Deportation

beetandbaguette's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child abuse, Child death, Cursing, Death, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Gore, Gun violence, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Racial slurs, Racism, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Vomit, Police brutality, Medical content, Trafficking, Grief, Medical trauma, Stalking, Death of parent, Murder, Pregnancy, Sexual harassment, Injury/Injury detail, and Deportation

reagananidobu's review against another edition

emotional sad tense fast-paced

• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Gun violence, Miscarriage, Rape, Xenophobia, Police brutality, Trafficking, Grief, Death of parent, Murder, and Deportation

beccalora's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Gun violence, Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Torture, Violence, Blood, Police brutality, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Grief, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts and Deportation

Minor: Rape

jennjoy's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Great read, but pretty depressing since the situations the migrants encounter are very much based in truth. I always thought of migrants as being brave to endure the journey but had not considered hard enough the atrocities that are happening that would cause them to go. This book truly lets us in to the same feeling of terror that the characters experience. I recommend but it's not easy to read if you have a strong empathy drive.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Rape, Sexual assault, Violence, Police brutality, Murder, and Deportation

Moderate: Child death, Miscarriage, Torture, Violence, Trafficking, Death of parent, and Sexual harassment