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Jeanine Cummins's American Dirt, the 1 New York Times bestseller and Oprah Book Club pick that has sold over three million copies Lydia lives in Acapulco. She has a son, Luca, the love of her life, and a wonderful husband who is a journalist. And while cracks are beginning to show in Acapulco because of the cartels, Lydia’s life is, by and large, fairly comfortable. But after her husband’s tell-all profile of the newest drug lord is published, none of their lives will ever be the same. Forced to flee, Lydia and Luca find themselves joining the countless people trying to reach the United States. Lydia soon sees that everyone is running from something. But what exactly are they running to? Read more
Publisher : Flatiron Books
Publication date : January 21, 2020
Edition : First Edition
Language : English
Print length : 400 pages
ISBN-10 : 1250209765
ISBN-13 : 64
Item Weight : 1.4 pounds
Dimensions : 6.58 x 1.42 x 9.59 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #33,602 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #61 in Family Life Fiction (Books) #61 in Psychological Fiction (Books) #62 in Hispanic American Literature & Fiction
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Top Amazon Reviews
American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins is an incredibly moving and powerful novel. With that said, it’s a strange time to be reading a novel about migrants coming to the US in today’s time. The story about Lydia and her son running from a Mexican drug cartel after they killed her entire family is very moving and you feel heartbreak for them. Throughout the book the telling of how they made it from Acapulco to the US is very moving and terrifying. I don’t know how anyone would be able to do that. The story is so emotional and heartbreaking and brings you up and down in feelings with everything they go through. I know I couldn’t do it and I know it’s a book but I also believe there are people going through this to try to get to the US. All that aside, the writing was very good with very good written characters.
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Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2025 by BJ Renczkowski
Timely political perspective. Introduces you to a level of empathy and humanity that you can't always glean from information in the news. Have worked in schools with a large immigrant population, and I have so much respect for their tenacity and their willingness to work and to thrive!
Reviewed in the United States on May 12, 2025 by Amazon Customer
Jeanine Cummins tells the story of a family that experiences a tremendous loss and are forced to become migrants running for their lives from a cartel in this epic tale. Imagine everything horrible that can happen to a migrant, based on the news stories that you’ve heard, and almost all of that happens to one of the characters in this novel. Lydia Perez, her husband Sebastian, and her 8-year-old son Luca live a simple but comfortable life in Acapulco, Mexico, when one terrible momentous day everything changes. Sebastian is a newspaper reporter, who writes a story about the cartel that both Sebastian and Lydia think is innocuous enough. Lydia is the business owner of a bookstore, but she also has a connection to Sebastian’s investigative reporting into the cartels. In short, they both judge wrongly that they are safe, and the price that they pay is devastatingly high. Readers should be weary Cummins does not shy away from any of the atrocities that happen to migrants. There are themes of death, suicide, trauma, rape, and kidnap throughout. Sex trafficking is implied at points. If you are currently triggered by any of these, this may not be the season for you to read this book. Cummins concentrates her descriptive prose on the migrants in this novel, not the cartel. In the Author’s Note at the end of the novel Cummins states that she wanted to write about the migrant experience, not the cartel practices as other books have done, and I think she successfully accomplished it. Cummins describes the Perez’s in relatable ways, as a “regular” Mexican family, whose actions happen to impact a cartel member, which causes their lives to forever be changed. Readers can almost picture their own family as being just like the Perez family, the way Cummins describes their values and everyday lives before they have little choice but to become migrants. As the main characters start on their travel to “El Northe,” Lydia and Luca meet several other migrants. Some of them are nefarious criminals and should not be trusted, and some are innocent victims of circumstance just like themselves. Of course, Lydia and Luca cannot tell who is trustworthy and who is not, but the plot backs them into corners several times, and they must decide. Cummins adequately creates suspense in those moments when readers are also trying to discern if Lydia and Luca are going to be betrayed, robbed, or otherwise harmed. Most of the migrant travelers are men, so Lydia and Luca are especially vulnerable being a woman and young child. Some of the characters that Lydia and Luca decide to trust include a pair of sisters, and another young boy who is 10. It is these characters, as well as the main characters of Lydia and Luca, that Cummins spends the most time on. The way Cummins describes her characters background and motivation made it easy for me to feel invested in their safely crossing the border. I think most readers will find they care about the primary migrant characters, and that feeling intensifies the story. Another complication of Lydia and Luca’s escape is how abruptly they leave. This was not a well-planned journey they decided to take. It is a spur-of-the-moment fleeing, and not from their house but from someone else’s residence immediately after a violent attack. Because of this, Lydia has just moments to grab what she can and make life altering decisions about where to go and how to get to “El Northe.” This plot line gives Cummins liberty to have Lydia explore different methods that migrants use to get to the border of America and cross. At points, these portions read more like a social studies textbook than a literary novel and I felt my attention slip from the story, however temporary. The method that Lydia embarks on is to jump on top of a series of trains that are traveling north. Cummins has Lydia reason through why this is the best of the equally horrible methods of traveling north. Her descriptions of how the migrants board the train, what it is like to travel on them, how they get off the train and what the repercussions are of using the trains are superb. I was left wondering how she could describe this experience of traveling so well without having jumped on top of a train herself to experience it. Although portions of the novel felt like I was reading Cummins research for a non-fiction book, I feel like I learned a lot about the experience of migrants. I confess that before reading this book I did not much consider the reasons for people to try to cross America’s border, how they do it, or the perils of doing so. I have a great deal of compassion for migrants, but being in the Midwest of the U.S., honestly most weeks not a thought crosses my mind about America’s borders. Therefore, having much to learn, I finished Cummins book feeling like I accomplished a more in-depth understanding of the life-threatening danger and hardships that migrants endure. I am vaguely aware there was some controversy about this book when it released. I believe this centered around the fact that Cummins herself is not Latin American, nor has she been a migrant. Certainly, I would love to read a first-hand account of a crossing written by a migrant. Realistically, I can also understand the difficulties a migrant would have to overcome in order to write about that experience. In the absence of a first-hand account, I think American Dirt is Cummins’s attempt to be an ambassador for migrants by raising to attention some of the terrifying experiences they go through. In my opinion, there are no silent allies, therefore I deeply appreciate what I can only assume is her successful attempt to honor the migrant experience by describing a fair depiction. I am grateful for the deeper compassion for migrants that it afforded me.
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Reviewed in the United States on February 5, 2021 by Kimberly
I had a really difficult time putting this book down! Absolutely a must read, it shed light on what migrants possibly go though… highly recommend
Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2025 by Sarah
Very thought provoking and eye opening. It is a fictional story with so much nonfiction interwoven. The character development is heart warming and heart breaking at the same time.
Reviewed in the United States on May 19, 2025 by Robin Brown
This is an outstanding book and the copy I purchased was in perfect condition, exactly as advertised.
Reviewed in the United States on May 18, 2025 by Mark D. Brownell
Early in 2019, my book group read Philip Caputo's novel, "Some Rise by Sin". The book has strong religious themes and tells a story of a Mexican drug cartel and its impact on the poor. The book stresses the pervasive nature of the cartel or "Brotherhood" and how it infiltrates all aspects of Mexican life. Our group is in the process of reading another novel set in Mexico and dealing with drug cartels. In contrast to the ponderous character of "Some Rise by Sin" and its focus on religious themes, Jeanine Cummins novel "American Dirt" is a page-turner. The novel tells the story of Lydia Perez and her eight year old son, Luca, who are forced to flee Acapulco and take their chances in reaching and entering the United States when they find themselves in the sights of a Mexican drug cartel. The book is a suspense story with elements of a picaresque road novel as it shows the many people and places Lydia and her son meet on their harrowing journey. The novel opens with a shocking scene in which Lydia's family is gunned down during a birthday celebration after Lydia's husband, a journalist, has written an expose of the newly-dominant cartel. Lydia owns a bookstore in Acapulco. She has become close friends with one of her patrons, Javier, a would-be poet and devoted reader. Lydia does not at first recognize Javier as the cartel leader. When the rest of the family, including Lydia's husband is killed by Javier's gang at the party while she and Luca hide in the house, she concludes that she must flee. Cummins describes Lydia's flight to the United States over 53 days 2,645 miles. She must watch vigilantly at every step to avoid the powerful, ever-present cartel. During the journey, she and Lucas meet many people, including fellow-migrants, kind individuals who try to assist the migrants, members of the cartel, and people in many Mexican cities and towns who try to live their lives and not to become involved with the cartel. The many characters in the story include two beautiful teenage sisters fleeing from Guatemala, who face many difficulties from sexually predatory men before and during their flight for a better life. Much of the flight of Lydia and Luca and their fellow migrants takes place on freight trains nicknamed "La Bestia". The migrants become adept at the task of scaling the freight railroads heading north. This mode of transportation has its risks, which are graphically described in the story. In addition to riding La Bestia, the other large part of the journey begins with Lydia and Luca reach a border town and need to arrange for their crossing into the United States. Together with several other migrants, friendly and unfriendly, they enlist the services of a coyote -- an individual who leads immigrants on the treacherous journey through the desert to make an illegal entry into el norte, The book offers a personalized portrayal of the coyote and of the brutal, high-risk nature of the journey. The book held my attention during several cold and icy days as I followed the journey of Lydia and Luca and was moved by the risks they faced and by the acts of kindness and compassion by those who helped them along the way, including several priests. Although it has a melodramatic component, the book reads well and for the most part convincingly. The book tells a story of the impact of the drug trade and the search of some individuals to find a better life. I enjoyed reading this book in a group, together with the Caputo novel, to get pictures of the Mexican drug cartels and their impact as viewed through the eyes of two United States novelists. Robin Friedman
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Reviewed in the United States on February 20, 2021 by robin friedman