BookLife Review: Solito, by Javier Zamora

immigration, LA USA, migration by foot, youth detention, crossing the Border, INS, memoir, American Dirt, hunger, desert

I had to let some time pass between reading this book and posting a review. It may forever remain in my Top Ten Books list. This book, this heart-breaking story, gutted me. After living for several years with his grandparents, and without his parents following their emigration to the US, Javier, then a ten-year old boy journeys with a coyote and a small group of people fleeing Central and South American horror and poverty to join his parents who are living undocumented in CA. Ten. Years. Old. Just imagine your own child in his shoes.

Many readers will recall the emigration novel from a few years ago, American Dirt, and how it riveted. That too was steeped in truths, but was a novel, a thriller where the protagonists were being hunted down by members of a gang. In Solito, written as a memoir, Javier Zamora (@javierzamora) shares his personal story in harrowing detail and vignettes. Now grown, he recounts his memories. He massages loneliness, fear, exhaustion, hunger and dogged determination to reach "La USA," the land of opportunity and, even in low-wage living circumstances, a land of tremendous wealth and opportunity. Zamora sketches miles-long walks in the dark, parching thirst, brutal desert heat and setback encounters with La Migra in stark and spare detail. It's riveting; as a reader and a human, you root for these travelerss who are desperate to become immigrants, to live in the freedom and opportunity of the United States. Everyone should read this book, and then take a moment to be grateful for the all-too-often take for granted blessings of food, water and shelter.