Book Review: American Dirt
- Amazing Grace L. Danso
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
Book Review: American Dirt
Author: Jeanine Cummins 🇺🇸
Type of work (Genre): fiction
Number of pages: 454
Own or Borrowed: own, purchased from The Word Playce Bookstore
Overall Impressions: I had mixed feelings overall. Cummins is a good writer. However, I had a number of issues with the story itself. For starters, Cummins is not Mexican and that fact is quite obvious while reading the story and it makes me wonder what her motivation was for telling it. I’m not saying she can’t necessarily tell this story about cartels and forced migration but there was a certain disconnect evident for me in her not being from Mexico. I also struggled with the main character herself and how she came to befriend a cartel leader. The story felt too much like it was centering a priviledged person’s experience in order to humanize the largely underpriviledged who are often forced to migrate to the US. We shouldn’t have to see struggle through a priviledged lens before we activate our humanity when it comes to the less fortunate. I also struggled with the sexual trauma in the book, that was unleashed liberally on two teen girls, being framed as resulting from their extraordinary beauty. It makes rape about physical appearance rather than an issue about power and control. I felt like the semi-minor characters had a more compelling story to tell on the themes of the book.
Something that stood out: I did love her interweaving English and Spanish throughout the book.
Overall Rating: 🖋🖋🖋 (out of 5 fountain pens).
Recommend or nah: I won’t ever tell you to not read something I post publicly.
Follow my @agsbookadventures 🤓📚IG & Facebook accounts dedicated to books & reading☺️ Also find me on TikTok via the handle @agsbookadventures. There is a video component to this review which is more detailed. I ran out of storage space to upload them here.
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