Unknown American Book Summary

The Book of Unknown Americans by Christina Henriquez has been reviewed by many newspapers, like The New York Times, The Washington Times and The Guardian. All three start their reviews by giving a summary of the book. The book seems to be about Hispanic/ Latino families living in Delaware. From all of the reviews, The Book of Unknown Americans seems to be a fictional documentary that tells the stories of all of the people, from all across the Spanish-speaking world, living in the apartment building and the struggles they are going through in the United States.

The New York Times and The Guardian gave the best reviews. They listed the good and bad points of the book and this made reviews more objective Anyone can praise a book, but telling

The Washington Times’ praised the book a lot. Claire Hopley is the reviewer and she applauses the book for being realistic. She says that “At the end of ‘The book of Unknown Americans’ this issue is unresolved….She is at her strongest in this depiction of the quotidian…Through this impinges on the suspension of disbelief, the interest and appeal of the novel.” This review didn’t showcase any of the negative and weak points in the story. This makes the review seem very biased and unbelievable. Every book has at least one downfall and by not including a counterargument in their review gives off the impression that they may have been paid to put this book in a good light. I wouldn’t buy the book based off of this review

It seems like the book caters to a white audience and doesn’t accurately portray the people in the story who are nonwhite people. In my opinion, true portrayals of a group of people, who aren’t white, should be written in a way that shows the culture the person is from. I have Spanish speaking friends and they are always mixing English and Spanish (“Spanlish”) and that became a part of their culture. The reviews show that Henriquez writes in standard English instead of throwing in a lot of cultural background. But, all of the reviews do highlight the fact that this book gives a lot of insight on Hispanic/Latino immigrants that come to America. I would probably buy the book to learn more about their lives if the book was on