A review by shanviolinlove
Into the Beautiful North by Luis Alberto Urrea
5.0
A novel on Mexican migration primed me for a narrative fraught with graphic hardships, strong indictments against the economic and political systems that work against migrants and their home environments, the dangers of migration, and the reality of racism. And to be sure, this novel contains all of that.
What I was not expecting was how lighthearted, even dirpy, the overall tone of the novel is. It's an action adventure, and a fun-loving one at times. At some point I stopped "worrying" about the characters' well-being. Whether or not they would be successful in their quest would be determined over the course of the novel, but I was able to relax some and even enjoy the thrill of the adventure with Nayeli and her cohorts in their precocious aim to travel to the U.S. and bring back militaristic migrants to fight the bad men who have taken over her home village. Urrea's novel does expose this reality of unhappy migrants forced out of their home and living abroad, as well as many migrants' heart-wrenching ignorance of what life in America is really like (versus what they have been told and thus leave home to pursue). His nonfiction work, The Devil's Highway, demonstrates this in a much more serious indictment, but here, again, this is ultimately an adventure story. I fell in love with each character. I laughed a lot. I was moved. This novel showed yet another side to the brilliant storytelling prowess of a favorite author of mine.
What I was not expecting was how lighthearted, even dirpy, the overall tone of the novel is. It's an action adventure, and a fun-loving one at times. At some point I stopped "worrying" about the characters' well-being. Whether or not they would be successful in their quest would be determined over the course of the novel, but I was able to relax some and even enjoy the thrill of the adventure with Nayeli and her cohorts in their precocious aim to travel to the U.S. and bring back militaristic migrants to fight the bad men who have taken over her home village. Urrea's novel does expose this reality of unhappy migrants forced out of their home and living abroad, as well as many migrants' heart-wrenching ignorance of what life in America is really like (versus what they have been told and thus leave home to pursue). His nonfiction work, The Devil's Highway, demonstrates this in a much more serious indictment, but here, again, this is ultimately an adventure story. I fell in love with each character. I laughed a lot. I was moved. This novel showed yet another side to the brilliant storytelling prowess of a favorite author of mine.