Response to La Linea - Angel Brakorenko

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 La Linea was a very eye-opening book for me. I knew that immigrants from the Mexican border had a very hard time crossing into America but never realized just how treacherous and damaging the journey truly was. Both my mom and dad came here as immigrants (my dad being illegal for quite a few years), but the hardest thing for them was to get on their feet financially. We never notice how privileged and lucky we are until we are faced with this kind of reality where leaving the country is almost necessity instead of whimsy. 

I think this is a great book to teach to any grade level middle school and up. Although we all agreed that the ending was a bit unrealistic, it helps that the siblings made it all the way because if not for them going through all of that, the reader would not be able to get an overview of all the possible things that can happen along the path to la linea. 

Speaking from the perspective of just someone who picked this book up for fun, I would not recommend it to someone if that was their goal. I believe that there are better stories out there about the same topic that are executed more to my liking. I can't quite put my finger on it but it just seemed a little far away from me. I just did not feel what I needed to feel about the characters or the story. 

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