Every day a fresh horror, and when it's over, this feeling of surreal detachment. A disbelief, almost, in what they just endured.

A griping tale that shows the plight of citizens fleeing their homes for reasons most of us cannot fathom. However sensationalized this story may be (or not, Cummins indicated several years of research went in to this book), the truth is probably a lot darker than the majority of us realize.

This story was a rollercoaster and each chapter had enough climax or tension that I would say "one more" and made faster progress through the book than I expected.

...he starts to understand that this is the one thing all migrants have in common, this is the solidarity that exists among them, though they all come from different places and different circumstances...each of them carries some story of suffering on top of that train and into el norte beyond.

I had some problems with how some characters were structured, descriptions of others that became tiresome and even the pacing of their progress. But this isn't the book that you critique a child or someone in the ensemble cast. This is a book that opens you up to the real horrors that go out "out there" and any flaws I note are immaterial.

But their lives have been so expansive, their traumas so adult. They are adult women, and now they're meant to clip themselves into a three-ring binder each day.

What this story did was allow me to understand the difficulties migrants face, how they have to weigh losing it all or dying and moving on for promise of a better future. And what does that future look like on the other side? How can you start from nothing? How do the horrors of your past not make you detached and a husk of yourself?

Quote worthy lines from the authors note section at the end:

We seldom think of them as our fellow human beings.

So I hoped to present one of those unique personal stories - a work of fiction - as a way to honor the hundreds of thousands of stories we may never get to hear.