American Dirt Review

By Jeanine Cummins

Rating: 2/5

Lydia lives in Acapulco. She has a son, Luca, the love of her life, and a wonderful husband who is a journalist. And while cracks are beginning to show in Acapulco because of the cartels, Lydia’s life is, by and large, fairly comfortable. But after her husband’s tell-all profile of the newest drug lord is published, none of their lives will ever be the same.

Forced to flee, Lydia and Luca find themselves joining the countless people trying to reach the United States. Lydia soon sees that everyone is running from something. But what exactly are they running to?

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I finished this book a couple days ago and there's definitely a lot to say. This book has been a controversial topic for a while now. But I honestly don't understand why. It's not racist in any way. It's only seen as racist based on who the author is. I can name three other historical fiction novels that did not receive nearly as much criticism that I could see being deemed as racist based on this idea of being racist over who wrote it. If you move past that, it's a beautifully sad story of a mother and son trying to escape to America while being hunted by the cartel that killed their family.

In all honesty, I would never have picked this book up if it weren't for my mother. She's the one who actually wanted to read this after hearing the controversy over it. I only picked it up, so we could talk about it together. Since it's also the Barnes and Noble book club pick this month, I'll be attending the meeting tonight to hear other's thoughts as well.

I did not enjoy reading this book. I felt there were parts missing from this story that would made it stronger. Without those parts, it felt like a slow trudge through this story following the mother and son along their journey. This 400 page book did not need to be so long, it could have been much shorter and the story just as beautiful. At one point I almost stopped reading because it was so slow. I prefer a faster pace book, so this was not the book for me. However, I do not regret reading this book and highly recommend if a slow paced book does not bother you, you should definitely read this.