"Timely . powerful . genuinely moving . a chronicle of a beautiful Mexican teenager named Maribel Rivera and her admiring friend and neighbor, Mayor Toro. Maribel and Mayor''s star-crossed love lends this novel an emotional urgency; the story of their families gives us a visceral sense of the magnetic allure of America, and the gaps so many immigrants find here between expectations and reality. In slowly revealing the back stories behind [their] arrival in America and what they have at stake in remaining here, Henríquez gives us an intimate understanding of the sense of dislocation they experience almost daily, belonging neither here nor there, caught on the margins of the past and the future. She conveys the homesickness they feel--missing not just family and friends but also the heat and light and rhythms of the places they left behind--and their awareness of the fragility of even their most ordinary dreams of safety. The story encapsulate[s] the promises and perils of the American dream .
Henríquez''s myriad gifts as a writer shine." --Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times "Henríquez distills the vast sea of immigrant stories into a small apartment building community in Delaware. At the center are two star-crossed teens, Mayor and Maribel . Through their friendship and budding romance, Mayor becomes a hero, protecting Maribel from a dangerous boy. He starts to bring her out of her shell [and] Maribel begins to reconnect with her former self. Their doomed love is just one of the Romeo & Juliet twists in the book--Henríquez threads that theme through the relationships between parents and their children, husbands and wives, the immigrant community with their home countries and their new one . Through her unadorned prose, these struggles ring clear, voices rising above the din of political debate." --Korina Lopez, USA Today "Gripping .
genuinely devastating. Henríquez has found a memorable way to open up complex topics--discrimination, love and grief in family life, and the experiences of being displaced or feeling at home. A novel that can both make you think and break your heart." --Sarah Stone, San Francisco Chronicle "Reminiscent of the chorus of voices that made Oscar Lewis''s The Children of Sanchez so memorable, and Arundhati Roy''s The God of Small Things so profoundly humane, Henriquez''s tale about coming to America is a striking original . It''s no easy trick to pull a good story from the classic immigrant chronicle, the striver''s tale. But this novel about the Riveras and their hastily cobbled world is sure to bring Henriquez many readers. It is a deeply stirring story about a budding romance between two unlikely lovers, but also a ringing paean to love in general: to the love between man and wife, parent and child, outsider and newcomer, pilgrims and promised land. With a simple, unadorned prose that rises to the level of poetry, Henríquez achieves the seemingly impossible: Without a trace of sentimentality, without an iota of self-indulgence or dogma, she tells us about coming to America.
The Book of Unknown Americans leaves you in thrall to its vivid characters and its author''s sure hand." --Marie Arana, The Washington Post "In a TED talk titled ''The Danger of a Single Story," Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie noted that ''the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete.'' Henríquez''s big-hearted novel challenges the ''single story'' by exploring a wide range of Latino experiences. The Book of Unknown Americans is a welcome contribution to a broadening literary conversation that features immigrants from all across the Americas, and all walks of life. As Henríquez shows, theirs is a story composed of many stories." --Ashley Hope Pérez, Texas Observer "There''s an aura of benevolence in these pages that feels honestly come by, stemming in part from Mayor and Maribel''s innocent romance but mostly from the steady support and encouragement among the families--the charismatic residents of the Redwood Apartments in Delaware. ''Who comes to the U.S.
and ends up in Delaware?'', one [character] jokingly wonders . Henríquez''s feat is to make the reader feel at home amid these good, likeable people. Be warned: The price of this closeness is the book''s tragic conclusion." -- The Wall Street Journal "Textured, resonant . rich, human. The Book of Unknown Americans ramps up like a rainstorm then releases across the landscape, and once you look outside, touches absolutely everything. It is a graceful examination of the American immigrant experience from the oft overlooked perspective of the immigrant herself . It''s easy to become lost in the young love story, [but] Alma''s parenting checks readers back into the fear and newness inherent in life on unfamiliar turf, with the inability to communicate .
The novel''s last line is bone-chilling. A secret peek into lives--an unknown life--to which we are not often privy. To walk away without learning something from its pages--most of all, empathy--would be an opportunity squandered. But leave it to the feeling in your chest on your chest when you reach the last page to tell you that." --Meredith Turits, Bustle (June fiction pick) "I didn''t want to read another book about the immigrant experience. So ubiquitous in literature, the theme can feel tired and unoriginal, even to those of us who''ve lived it. But the first few paragraphs of Henríquez''s prose--words whose simplicity belies their weight--seduced me with beauty and the promise of a rich tale. And Henríquez delivered.
This is a book about love, about how we seek to help those we love, sometimes with unforeseen and tragic consequences . Henríquez ignites the tension in the first few pages and lets it simmer and pull the story along . Lyrical . There is beautiful writing in these pages [that] illustrates the full ethnic range of the Americas and how so many people south of our border ended up here. I''m not spoiling it to say that Henríquez brings the story to a heart-crushing explosion of an end fueled by secrets, love, fear and ethnic tension. Bottom line, if you read only one more book about the immigrant experience, make it this one." --Beatriz Terrazas, Dallas Morning News "Observant . a bighearted ensemble of a story.
Set at a scrappy apartment complex in Delaware, The Book of Unknown Americans is a pan-Latino novel, with characters from Panama, Venezuela, Mexico and Puerto Rico, among other nations. In love and locked out of any reasonably cool social scene in high school, Mayor Toro and Maribel Rivera are the teens at the heart of the novel. Interspersed among their tentative, fumbling love story are chapters devoted to the back stories of the other residents of the complex. Henríquez covers the gamut of the immigrant experience: how they arrived in America, why they came, what they think of their new home, whether they miss their first home. In other words, she captures an experience at the heart of this country''s history that is often a cursory, incomplete story in the media . Poor and at the mercy of forces they do not entirely understand, her characters nonetheless experience victories that no one but their families and the fellow residents of their complex share. ''I hope this book can play a small role in maybe opening Americans a bit more to empathy,'' Henriquez says." --Claiborne Smith, Kirkus "Remarkable .
the narrative of our two central families could easily sustain the novel, but Henríquez has taken it further. The Book of Unknown Americans gives voice to an entire society of people who struggle and work for the hope of better lives--but these lives don''t necessarily turn out as they may have dreamed. These people live days steeped in uncertainty and sometimes fear, and the sacrifices that are made in a move toward a better lot in life are huge. Henriquez opens the doors to this experience. Amid the grit and shadows, doubt and desperation, Henríquez finds beauty in community, in love, in family, in perseverance. And lucky us--we have the beauty, too, that is Henríquez''s writing." --Kristin Fritz, Everyday eBook "With eloquence, grace and, yes, sorrow, Henríquez creates an ensemble cast that speaks for millions of people who live among us but whose voices are rarely heard. This is a remarkable novel that every American should read.
" --Meganne Fabrega, Minneapolis Star Tribune "Enrapturing and heartbreaking . a stunning cross-cultural love story under the guise of a narrative about Latino families trying to make their way in America . Like a music master at the harp, Henriquez elegantly plays with human heart strings as she illustrates the complexities of the immigrant experience through the story of two families, as well as the company with whom they surround themselves." --Morgan Ribera, Bustle "The stories you hear about immigration are the ones that generate sensational headlines: sheriffs patrolling the border with shotguns, finger-pointing on Fox News, red-hot rhetoric in political campaigns across the country. But as Henríquez was reminded a few years ago, there are plenty of stories that are told rarely, if ever . At the center of The Book of Unknown Americans are Arturo and Alma Rivera, who have immigrated legally from Mexico to enroll their daughter in a special-needs school because she has suffered a brain injury. When Mayor Toro, a young naturalized citizen originally from Panama, falls in love with her, the Rivera and Toro families become forever intertwined . The Riveras'' vulnerability increases [and] ultimately the s.