Title: American Dirt
Author: Jeanine
Cummins
Narrated by: Yareli Arizmendi
Publisher: Macmillan
Audio
Length:
Approximately16 hours and 43 minutes
Source: Checked
out from the Kewaunee Public Library through Overdrive
What is your
favorite book about a journey?
American Dirt is
an audiobook that I could not stop listening too. The story really wrapped me in and made me
really care about the characters. It was
the March selection for the Rogue book club, but I listened to it in February.
Lydia Quixano
Perez lives in Acapulco and is happily married to her husband, a journalist, Sebastian. The novel starts off with a tragedy as Lydia’s
entire family is slaughtered at a quinceañera party. Only Lydia and her young son, Luca, survive
by hiding in the shower. Lydia and Luca
start a perilous journey north through Mexico to the United States. The story also flashes back to tell the story
leading up to the massacre. Lydia owned a book store and had a favorite patron,
Javier, that she became friends with.
Little did she know that Javier was a crime lord. What did Javier have to do with Lydia’s
families death and why? Will Lydia and
Luca make it to the United States?
I greatly enjoyed
this story. The Javier and Lydia connection
was fascinating and I wanted to know more about it. The story was very perilous and made me think
about the journey of so many migrants to our southern border. I liked to trace Lydia and Luca’s path on a
map to see where they were. The story
had great hooks and keep me interested. Yareli
Arizmendi was a great narrator and I thought of her as the voice of Lydia.
I had heard this book
had a controversy about it and I had to look it up afterwards. The controversy is the author Jeanine
Cummins, is not from Mexico and is not a migrant. While I do really like #ownvoices of people telling
their own stories, I also respect that authors write fiction. I read The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
at the same time I listened to this audiobook.
John Steinbeck was not an Okie and did not have to flee westward and work
on migrant farms, but he was able to shine a light on an important migration
and story in our history. I feel the
same way about this book. Cummins may
not have experienced it, but she is shining a light on an important migration
that is currently happening right now.
This will hopefully make one look for nonfiction perspectives on it.
What do you think?
