A review by 23149014345613
American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins

3.0

This is a pretty good book - a gut-wrenching, fairly well-told and thrilling account of a "normal" Mexican woman and her son fleeing into the United States to escape from narcos. I'm deducting stars just because this isn't my favorite type of book, and at times I felt like the author was using this book as a kind of ambassador to tell Americans about the migrant experience. Which isn't a bad job for a book to have, and I don't know if it's something I'm just projecting unfairly onto the story. But it made the strokes feel a little broad and the message a little cheesy? The characters felt kind of abstract, and the action was kind of over-the-top at times, as if so the author could show more of the various experiences migrants have to the general audience. I don't know. I enjoyed the ride (when I wasn't wincing) and thought the ending was satisfyingly realistic.