Lupita Man?ana: Book Review

The event-packed book, Lupita Man?ana, is about a 13 year old girl, named Lupita Torres, and her 15 year old brother named Salvador Torres. They, dealing with their recent loss of their father, must cross the border of Mexico and the United States to reach Indio, California and work for a better life for not only themselves but also their mom and four younger siblings. Although the plot structure is not the best and the unreal escape acts distract from the author’s general idea, it is still full of exciting scenes.

The story of Lupita may have benefited from flash backs or other form of forming the exposition of characters, rather than by using only the chronological format it already possesses. Although the action starts from almost the beginning with a mugging while going to Tijuana, they always escape with little to no damage. The suspense builds increasingly at the end of chapters with every spine-tingling cliffhanger, yet, they all end in the next chapter with a lack of detail that annoys the reader frequently. La Migra, a huge problem for immigrants, shows up and disappears without much of a fracas. Still, the action is present when they are almost caught in a train hopper by police officers.

I would recommend this book to people who like books about immigration. Since this book was written about 30 years ago, a more recent and realistic text would be Under the Same Moon.