The Border

September 1, 2017

Gr 10 Up-This tale of border-crossing through the Arizona desert misses the mark. Filled with cultural stereotypes, the story glamorizes and misrepresents the complexity of narco-violence and lacks contextualization of the sociopolitical forces, underlying violence, corruption, and immigration along the Mexico/U.S. border. The novel opens with the mass murder of 40 people at a quinceanera. Included among the dead are the immediate and extended family of the novel's protagonists, cousins Pato and Arbo, and siblings Marcos and Gladys. As the plot unfolds, readers learn that the killers are members of La Frontera, a drug-cartel that Pato's and Arbo's fathers' have angered. Escaping the massacre, the teens see no option but to flee across the unforgiving desert to the United States. Schafer's one-dimensional characterization is particularly disturbing in his sexist treatment of Gladys. Before the massacre, Pato compares Gladys against the rest of the girls at the party, who "teeter on too-high heels" with "too much makeup." Gladys shines angelic in a "homemade" dress. Later, when they make a pit stop along a town before crossing the border, Gladys exposes her breast in exchange for a translated copy of Huckleberry Finn, which she affectionately gives to Pato. La Frontera eventually catches up to the teens, and it is Gladys who pays the ultimate price. Gratuitous descriptions of her ultimate (violent) fate emphasize her victimhood. Linguistic slights are also prevalent, with Spanish words mostly used to spew curses. VERDICT Not recommended.-Lettycia Terrones, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2017
On the run from narcos, four Mexican teens flee home and head to the U.S. in Schafer's audacious YA debut. The all-black car lingers. Pato sees it, and the concealed people within, but he sets his worries aside as he joins his family and friends at his cousin's quinceanera. It happens in an instant: gunshots like firecrackers fill the air. Suddenly, everyone's gone except for Pato, his best friend, Arbo, tough guy Marcos, and Pato's obligatory love interest, Gladys. This opening sequence--one among a handful of equally suspenseful scenes, including a car chase in the border town of Sonoyta--makes the quieter, bleaker moments that follow seem all the more intense, stressing the desperate troubles these teens endure. Behind the massacre is a cartel group known as La Frontera, who publicize a reward for the capture of Pato and friends. This bounty scares off the shellshocked teens, sending them across the U.S.-Mexico border and into the blazing Sonoran Desert, where the devastating heat poses more of a threat than the border patrols and coyotes that operate in it. Looming over them in their escape is the uncertainty of life in the U.S., an apprehension that Schafer weaves throughout and summarizes in one raw, timely exchange: "You think they want you in their country? They don't." Revelations come in inevitable wallops (why were Pato's family and friends targeted?). Attempts at humor and fleshing out the bonds between characters sometimes ease things up but not always. This difficult balance is best summed up by Pato and Gladys' relationship, which is simultaneously out of place and, yet, disarmingly human. Messy and thrilling, flawed and often brilliant. (author's note) (Fiction. 14-18)

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