Jeanine Cummins

American Dirt (Oprah's Book Club) (Hardcover) by Jeanine Cummins

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(4.32) 4.32 stars out of 19 reviews 19 reviews
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American Dirt (Oprah's Book Club) (Hardcover) by Jeanine Cummins

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4.32 out of 5stars
(19 reviews)

Most helpful positive review

5.00 out of 5 stars review
Verified Purchaser
11/21/2022
Wow! I finished this book last night…
Wow! I finished this book last night but I thought about the characters all day! Lydia's and Luca's story is just amazing. The words were so well written and it was almost poetic at times. Although this book is fiction, the author worked hard to make it seem real and the journey to el norte was so well written, I felt like I was with them. I love that in the challenges, good people are portrayed in various points. While this isn't an easy read by any means it has made me think and I was completely hooked. This is unfortunately the reality for some (possibly not even close to a harsher reality) but it is important for others to read. Highly Recommended!
clp412

Most helpful negative review

3.00 out of 5 stars review
Verified Purchaser
05/10/2021
Some parts of this book were really…
Some parts of this book were really well written. But most, for me, seemed to just drag on and on with a similar theme and not much development. I was hooked in the beginning, nearly gave up for most of the middle, and was somewhat interested again toward the end. I did get a new appreciation of the migrant journey, but had to remind myself this wasn't a memoir. Overall, I was disappointed and would not recommend.
sbenne3
  • 5.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    11/21/2022
    Wow! I finished this book last night…
    Wow! I finished this book last night but I thought about the characters all day! Lydia's and Luca's story is just amazing. The words were so well written and it was almost poetic at times. Although this book is fiction, the author worked hard to make it seem real and the journey to el norte was so well written, I felt like I was with them. I love that in the challenges, good people are portrayed in various points. While this isn't an easy read by any means it has made me think and I was completely hooked. This is unfortunately the reality for some (possibly not even close to a harsher reality) but it is important for others to read. Highly Recommended!
    clp412
  • 5.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    07/08/2021
    Loved this book, despite the violence…
    Loved this book, despite the violence and despair. Lydia's husband and sixteen members of her family are murdered at her niece's birthday celebration. Her husband was a journalist for the newspaper in Acapualco and had just done a piece on the newest narco king-pin in town. Oddly, this narco king-pin was also a customer at Lydia's bookstore and had gotten friendly with her. As the thugs shot up the family celebration, Lydia and her son Luca were hiding in the bathroom and were undiscovered. Lydia knows that she must escape to the United States. The rest of the book details her and Luca's journey as migrants. If you don't understand how people would risk everything to enter the U.S. illegally, you should read this book.
    mojomomma
  • 5.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    05/15/2021
    American Dirt, a realistic fiction…
    American Dirt, a realistic fiction novel about migrants, kept me interested the entire time. Lydia owns a successful bookstore in Acapulco where her husband fairly reports the news, gaining respect as a good journalist. The novel begins with the cartel murdering her entire family at her niece's quinceanera. She and her son hide in the bathroom--only due to lucky timing--and wait out the slaughter. As the police and other people representing government agencies are often working for the cartels, Lydia knows that she and Luca must leave immediately or they will be dead as well. The cartel leader, Javier Crespo Fuentes, became a good friend of Lydia's. He enjoys reading the same books as Lydia and they have a friendship based on mutual interests. Although they are close, Lydia does not consider an affair. Javier probably would. They share their thoughts and grow very close. Lydia knows that time runs out quickly when being hunted. How to get out of Mexico? it's a long way to the United States. The best way becomes disguising oneself as a migrant. Technically, she and Luca can legally travel throughout Mexico, but she must hide, be unseen. They must ride La Bestia. Migrants, in death defying movements at times, get on the top of the trains going northwest and head to the Arizona border. They quickly meet Soledad and Angela, two girls from Central America, also fleeing violence to save their lives. These girls and Luca form a special bond, saving each other. As the group travels, the reader meets other migrants, learns about the groups who actively help migrants in their quest, experience the dangers of migration, and fear not achieving the goals of safety and freedom. I know there was controversy about the book because she isn't Latino and shouldn't be writing about a society of which she isn't a part. She does excellent research and presents the people fairly and with careful attention to the dangers. The novel represents fiction. Any writer has the right to research and write any book, including non-fiction. It's beautifully written and tells a meaningful story that only highlights the plight of people who face severe abuse. Any acknowledgement and attention should be lauded as an effort to help others. Attacking authors for good work should be redirected to the situation from which migrants flee. It's a book worth one's time. I never would have read it because it's not something I would generally pick up. My friend loaned it to me. As I give her books without her request, I figured I should read it:) I hated putting it down each night when it was time to turn out the lights and sleep. It's captivating, stressing one out with the dangers and the desire to make the world a better place.
    acargile
  • 4.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    05/15/2021
    I deliberately chose not to read…
    I deliberately chose not to read about the book before reading the book itself. I know there has been significant controversy over a non-Latin author telling this story. I thought the story was an excellent one. Great characters, lots of drama, edge of your seat moments of tension, are just a few of the positives. What is storytelling? Is there such a thing as valid or invalid storytelling? I personally think the issue is how well informed an author is. I have had many book group discussions about the value of fiction v. non-fiction. Each reader tends to have tolerance for some unquantifiable level of historical/psychological accuracy in a story, and that is the personal, subjective preference of each reader, not a right or wrong quantification. One of my book groups had a heated debate between two factions after reading "Where The Crawdads Sing". One group felt the story was so unrealistic that it was deplorable, while the other faction insisted that readers must be able to suspend reality to some extent with any story. So, I will just say that I thought it was a story well told.
    hemlokgang
  • 4.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    05/14/2021
    “It's still wet, and that seems…
    “It's still wet, and that seems impossible to Lydia, that her life could be shattered so completely in less time than it takes for a ring of condensation to evaporate into the atmosphere.” But it was. Now, she and her son are fleeing from the killers, and their jefe, who was once her friend. This book reminded me a bit of Don Winslow's book "The Border", especially the chapter “La Bestia”! Not in a plagiaristic kind of way, it just has a bunch of similarities. It's intense, haunting, and heart breaking. I think this is an important read for anyone interested in the migrant story. It really made me think! “ ‘They're thieves or rapists or murdererers, like the norteño president says. Bad hambres.' He mispronounces the word hombres in the style of the US president who, attempting to call migrants bad men, inadvertently referred to them as bad hunger instead. It's a joke now, full of irony.” A joke, just like the moron who said it! “She spits through the fence. Only to leave a piece of herself there on American dirt.”
    Stahl-Ricco
  • 5.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    05/12/2021
    Lydia lives in the Mexican city of…
    Lydia lives in the Mexican city of Acapulco. She runs a bookstore. She has a son, Lucas, whom she adores and a husband who is a journalist. She stocks some of her unique favorite books in her store. When Javier chooses a couple of her favorites, they develop a friendship involving books. Lydia doesn't know that Javier is the head of the latest drug cartel in her city. When her husband writes an expose about Javier, it changes their world forever. Lydia's entire family is murdered and she knows that she and Lucas must leave immediately to survive. They find themselves in a desperate trek to America where Javier can't reach them.
    creighley
  • 4.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    05/10/2021
    While this book was quite compelling,…
    While this book was quite compelling, it was a difficult read. The hopelessness that seemed to surround most of the situations was hard to get past at times. While I do know the book has involved some controversy, a little reading online and some personal experiences of teaching students who were here illegally tells me that this novel is largely true. The situation that Lydia and her son were in is unique to what I have known of people I have met, fortunately, but the drug cartels are real, as is the violence that goes with them. I think this is an important book in that it puts real faces to the people who are trying so hard to get into this country through any means possible. I am not sure what I think of the whole immigration issue, but knowing the stories and seeing the people, especially the children, does add a layer to it that goes beyond legalities.
    hobbitprincess
  • 3.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    05/10/2021
    Some parts of this book were really…
    Some parts of this book were really well written. But most, for me, seemed to just drag on and on with a similar theme and not much development. I was hooked in the beginning, nearly gave up for most of the middle, and was somewhat interested again toward the end. I did get a new appreciation of the migrant journey, but had to remind myself this wasn't a memoir. Overall, I was disappointed and would not recommend.
    sbenne3
  • 5.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    05/05/2021
    What an eye opening story! We follow…
    What an eye opening story! We follow Lydia and her son Luca as they flee from a Mexican cartel. We all know of refuges that leave their dangerous countries and try to enter the US illegally. There are so many stories and situations. When we follow Lydia, we also follow the people she meets and learn their story. Recommended.
    janismack
  • 3.00 out of 5 stars review
    Verified Purchaser
    05/04/2021
    Lydia and her son escape to the…
    Lydia and her son escape to the United States after her entire family is slaughtered by a drug cartel situated in Acapulco, Mexico. This is the story of her escape. This book started off with an promising premise. What is there not to like? A mass murder, two survivors, an urgent need to avoid also being murdered and an escape from Mexico. But, for some reasons, this book fell flat. Maybe it was because the characters seemed under-developed, maybe because the husband-journalist seemed so naïve that it became unbelievable. Was it the perfect life the family seemed to be living? What saved the book was its description of how migrants from Mexico and Latin America travel to the US (although it's hard to tell how accurate this was). This was something I knew very little about which kept me interested in the book.
    DidIReallyReadThat