A powerful memoir and the writing is phenomenal. I hope that LPL will consider choosing this book for Read Across Lawrence in the future.

****Beautiful book*****

This was a very readable and emotional memoir by a gifted writer. Grande tells her story of her early childhood in Mexico, her immigration to the U.S. when she was 9, and continues through her young adulthood. She foregoes the omniscient narrator pose and instead tells her stories through the eyes of her 4-year and 8-year and 15-year old selves; not an easy task but she succeeds beautifully. To call it an "immigration" story both politicizes the memories and denies the intimacy of Grande's tales. This is a family story, told from the POVs of Grande and her siblings. It taught me a lot about modern Mexican-American culture.

Thanks to metaphor, imagery, and siblings who can help fill in gaps in her memory, Reyna’s memoir is captivating and educational. She describes children with distended bellies full of worms, scorpions crawling on the walls and stinging them, and constant lice issues. The story is never too depressing in a way that made me want to stop reading. Reyna asserts outcomes that let the reader know her siblings are all right. For example, when Carlos is very sick as a boy and I wondered if he would die, Reyna reveals they learned when he was thirty that he had contracted hepatitis, the explanation for why he was in such pain. Knowing he makes it to at least thirty relieved some anxiety I felt. Reyna doesn’t “spoil” the story often; it’s just enough for a reader to have hope.

Both spouse and I read after recommended in immigration class he took. Tells a very different coming-of-age story about a real-life Reyna and her siblings, their lives in Mexico left in the care of relatives for years and Los Angeles as illegal immigrants. Recommended.

Not so easy to begin reading a book about kids with lice and tapeworms, living in squalor without loving parents to care for them. I had to put it down several times before I continued to read. But the beautiful, clear, honest, sweet writing hooked me and I read the last two-thirds in one sitting.

This is a book that lived with me in my head long after I finished. This is a story that resonates with more than just immigrants and people from poor countries. This is a journey through sadness, love, luck, fortune, appreciation, joy, heartbreak, and poverty. And through it all, the author is just a completely beautiful, positive, adorable person who has more grit and soul than almost anyone I know in real life.

One of those books that, when you're watching the news, you think of this woman's journey and how current events would affect her or someone in her family. Isn't that why we read?

This is a really wonderful autobiography about crossing the Mexican border as a child and adjusting to an entirely new life and culture. If you're thinking of reading this, go for it, because you won't regret it.

This is a sad, but beautiful account of a real immigrant to the United States. Reyna is a phenomenal storyteller/biographer, and I loved that she put her struggles and successes as a writer into this story of family, hope, and friendship as well. This memoir is going to be great for those wanting to know what it's like to live in Mexico and work hard to survive and make the best life they can.