This is a rather exhausting story about the struggles of an illegal immigrant man and a sanctimonious upper-middle-class Californian after the immigrant is run over by the Californian and badly injured. It might be a more enjoyable read for people who feel a bit less existentially exhausted already; I was relieved when the book was over. The Californian family is the sort who moves into those fancy estate homes in the middle of once beautiful nature preserves. They start out by enjoying the scenery and then start eroding away at it until all the wildlife is gone and the countryside is 'tamed', and seem to feel personally insulted if wildfires and other natural events dare threaten their attempts at encroaching on these natural areas. Delaney, the sort of writer who provides light columns for very middle class outdoorsy magazines, thinks he is not racist, but he really very obviously is. Meanwhile the immigrant, Candido, has landed himself and his underage 'wife' (the youngest sister of his wife in Mexico, apparently) in a patch of California where they are completely out of place. Instead of falling into place with other Spanish speaking immigrants and finding out about private charities and other options that might help them, they wind up camping by a trash-littered creekbed. Everything is pretty dismal, black and white and nearly hopeless in this book. I'm sure that real illegal immigrants have stories like these, and real yuppie Californians too, but most of the sorts of people I know in real life never appear in the world of this novel.
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engaging story about the rich and the poor ( )

This book was a lot more rape-y than I expected. Not sure exactly how much rape I had expected, but the amount in the book was definitely more.

Also, I didn't like the character Candido at all. At first he had my sympathies, and we were building a relationship with that, but then he turned out to be a huge asshole. The terrible way he treats his wife, his bullshit machismo at the cost of not only his own health but that of his wife and unborn baby, his complete stupidity when dealing with other people (Mexican and American) - all of this destroyed the sympathetic relationship I had with the character. I just ended up hating him.

We listened to this book on the drive from San Francisco to Los Angeles and back, and it did pass the time. However, I will not be listening to the final hours of this book now that we are done with driving. I don't especially like the characters and I don't especially care what happens to them. ( )

In Southern California, lives of two very different families are chronicled. Delany and Kyra Mossbacher are middle class parents of 6-year old Jordan. Delaney is a nature writer and Kyra is a real estate agent. Both are aware of the increasingly negative effect that Mexicans are having on their environment. Candido and America Rincon, man and wife, are two illegal Mexican immigrants who find it increasingly difficult to maintain a subsistence level of existence. The lives of the these two families intersect during various portions of the book.

The characters were very stereotypical. I found it hard to like any of them because they were so one dimensional and disagreeable. The end of the book was as unbelievable as the characters were unlikable. ( )

Very enjoyable read and creative. I can't say it's my all time favorite story since it bears resemblance to many others I've read. Regardless Boyle is an outstanding author. ( )