long before I read the book, I read about the hype: the cultural appropriation of the tale and the author's subsequent book tour being cancelled on the grounds of safety. it's probably the first time that twitter cancel culture spilled out into the streets and the publishers were worried about optics (and by the way, that's where the blame lies. if the complaint is that a different ethnicity should have written the story, then the publisher should go get one. I will always believe an artist is allowed the full scope of their imagination)
anyhow, it's quite a riveting tale - alternating between the present harrowing escape from Mexico while fleeing a murderous drug cartel, and a past tense quasi romance-friendship that developed between the protagonist and the drug lord. personally, I could do with less of the romancy stuff but I think the author was trying the give it a theme that no one person is all bad or all good, or at the very least tries to humanize a monster that killed her whole family with the exception of her son
maybe she got the specific details wrong (another criticism levelled at her) but she was successful in teaching me about the real dangers the migrants face, the incredible attempts of charities along the way, and put human faces and stories on people who often only portrayed as headlines