This content contains affiliate links. When you buy through these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
One of the benefits of working for Book Riot is my continued exposure to things that I wouldn’t normally read. For the longest, I, like many people, didn’t read as much poetry as I do now. After editing all the lists of great poetry written by our contributors, I finally got my life together and started picking up more poetry collections.
Its ability to get right, straight to the crux of the thing in as few words as possible feels low-key mystical at times, and I’m sure today’s poets were yesteryears’ shamans. This magical quality is what I love about poetry, and I really wish more people would read it. If you don’t normally reach for chapbooks or poetry collections when you, I hope you reconsider at least once during National Poetry Month. You can even get started with the collections below.
This week, we’re highlighting a post that had our Managing Editor Vanessa Diaz feeling a type of way. Now, even five years after it was published, Vanessa is still salty about American Dirt. Read on for an excerpt and become an All Access member to unlock the full post.
Picture it: The United States, January 2020. A book with a pretty blue and white cover is making the rounds on the bookish internet. The blue ink forms a beautiful hummingbird motif against a creamy background, a bird associated with the sun god Huitzilopochtli in Aztec mythology. Black barbed wire, at once delicate and menacing, cuts the pattern into a grid resembling an arrangement of Talavera tiles. The package is eye-catching, ostensibly Mexican in feel, and evocative of borders and the migrant experience.
The book tells the story of a bookstore owner in Acapulco, Mexico, who is forced to flee her home when a drug cartel murders everyone in her family except for her young son at a quinceañera. She and the boy are forced to become migrants and embark on a treacherous journey north to the U.S. border, evading the cartel and befriending fellow migrants along the way. The book is being lauded not just as the “it” book of the season but as the immigration story. It gets the Oprah treatment and is praised by everyone from Salma Hayek to the great Sandra Cisneros, who called it “the great novel of Las Américas.”
It’s been over five years, and this book is still the bane of my existence.
Sign up to become an All Access member for only $6/month and then click here to read the full, unlocked article. Level up your reading life with All Access membership and explore a full library of exclusive bonus content, including must-reads, deep dives, and reading challenge recommendations.
