American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins
My rating: 1 of 5 stars
My low rating has nothing to do with racism, cultural appropriation or any controversy. I wasn’t even aware of the controversy before giving up on the book and starting this review. I learned about it only from reading other reviews moments ago. For the record, I’m white but my wife’s grandfather emigrated from Mexico and two of my grandchildren are Mexican, i.e. Mexican citizens living in Mexico, not just Mexican-Americans.
Having gotten that out of the way, why do I rate it at one star? Because the book is missing pages! That’s right. Pages 119 through 150 simply aren’t there. There was obviously some production error at the printer. A big chunk of the story is gone. Not only that, pages 151 through 182 are repeated, the second batch coming right after the first. I suppose I could return the book and try to get a better copy, but I wasn’t all that impressed with it. I found much of it implausible and the writing adequate but unexciting. What could have and should have been suspenseful and thrilling just wasn’t.