Alicia Gaspar de Alba

3.5 stars

Conception is brought from Mexico to Massachusetts as a slave in the late 1600s. But on the ship on the way there, she is raped over and over. Once in New England, she has a baby, but the couple who bought her want a second child and haven’t been able to. So, while Conception tries to teach her daughter Spanish and some of her own culture, Rachel takes it upon herself to turn the child against her mother, and eventually takes Hanna (or Jeronima, depending if you ask Rachel or Conception). In a town not too far away, people are being accused of being witches, including Conception’s friend, Tituba.

This was good. There were parts that were a bit slower to read (literally), when Conception was writing letters, as the font was changed to look like handwriting. It does make me wonder if younger people will be able to read those parts of the book at all (if kids are no longer being taught cursive). It’s a tough book to read, though. I saw someone use the word “gritty”. Good way to describe it. Hanna/Jeronima drove me nuts sometimes! But I guess it’s hard for me to understand how easy it is for a child to be “brainwashed”, and that’s really what it amounted to.… (meer)

I've read and watched lots of crime dramas this year, and they can present some really creepy, disturbing scenarios. This novel is definitely one of the more creepy, disturbing crime dramas I've come across lately, not just because of the idea of a whole network of well-placed men preying upon women long enough to rack up a death toll of over 140 women, but because this book is based on real events. There really are thousands of missing and dead Hispanic women in the border towns and cities, whose lives are valued so little by the local criminal and judicial systems that the crimes against them will never be investigated. While they may not all be victims of snuff rings, I've no doubt that for some of those missing women in real life that is exactly what happened to them.

Reading a novelization of this nightmarish mess is not entertaining, and my knowing about this stuff may not change anything for the better, but I do like reading about real problems like this occasionally just so that they do not remain quite as completely under the radar and invisible. If you find rape and assault narratives particularly disturbing, this book may be too rough a read for you, but it is a well written novel and the issues it addresses are important.… (meer)

Es el verano de 1998 y durante cinco años más de un centenar de cuerpos mutilados y profanados han sido encontrados tirados en el desierto de Chihuahua fuera de Juárez, México, justo al otro lado del río de El Paso, Texas. Los autores del siempre creciente número de muertes violentas se dirigen a las mujeres jóvenes pobres, aterradores habitantes en ambos lados de la frontera. El Paso nativa Ivón Villa ha vuelto a su ciudad natal para adoptar al bebé de Cecilia, una trabajadora embarazada maquiladora en Juárez. Cuando Cecilia aparece estrangulada y destripada en el desierto, Ivón se ve inmersa en el caos del abuso y asesinato. A pesar de que las violaciones y asesinatos de chicas "del sur" continúan, una conspiración encubre los crímenes que implican a todos, desde la Asociación de Maquiladoras hasta la patrulla fronteriza. Cuando la hermana menor de Ivón es secuestrada en Juárez, Ivón sabe que le toca a ella para encontrar a su hermana, lo que sea necesario. A pesar de las severas advertencias que recibe de familiares, amigos y funcionarios nerviosos, la investigación de su Ivón se mueve más y más en el laberinto de silencio. De aclamado poeta y prosista Alicia Gaspar de Alba, Desierto de sangre es un apasionante thriller que reflexiona sobre los efectos del patriarcado, la identidad de género, la cultura fronteriza, transnacionalismo y la globalización en una crisis internacional.… (meer)