On Sale Date:January 10th 2017
Pages: 480
Solimar Castro Valdez is an eighteen year old woman living in the rural village of Popalco in Mexico. The living situation there is bad. So that's why she is the one in her family to try to cross the Mexican-American border with a coyote.Soli is smuggled across the mexican-us border by Manuel. He promised this to her parents and seemed like a thrustworthy person, but when they are off on the road, he goes a east instead of west. Soon enough Soli learns that she has not only to cross the border by herself, but also with some packages of drugs. During her try to cross the border, she meets Checo, from who she get's pregnant.Sadly this happens against her will. She does cross the border though and lands at the place of her cousin Sylvia,and gets a job as a nanny. She later get's a son and keeps working as a nanny as the family she works for is quite understanding. But when in the split of a second loses the girl she takes care for out of sight, this sets on a chain of events that lands her in a cruel immigrant detention center while her one year old son Ignacio is taken away from her and taken into foster care. Soli is broken after this and is devastated to get her son back.
Kavya, daughter of Indian immigrants and Rishi are a couple living in Berkeley. Everything in their live seems to go smooth, but no one knows that they are trying to get pregnant for a few years without succes. When even IVF doesn't seem to work out, they decide to go for adopting a child.
After some orientation, they find a foster family in Berkeley who takes care of six children who are eligible for adoption. One of them is Ignacio, who was brought in to the foster system recently. They start the proces to adopt him, but because Soli's situation is unclear and she might get him back, the judge decides that they will be his legal foster parents. Soli succeeds in escaping the detention center though and this is the start for her to find out where her son is and to get him back for good...
I truly didn't know what to expect when I got a copy of Lucky Boy. I only read the back flap synopsis in a whim because I like to be surprised by a book, call it a book blind date!
The story just blew me away. It is so beautifully written!! The book has two main characters, Soli and Kavya, who alternate in chapters. The book paints a painfull raw picture, including quite some scenes of abuse, of what an undocumented immigrant has to go trough, something that is very actual right now. I was wondering what the point was of separating Soli from her son. Wasn't it better then, if she would be deported anyway to send them both back? It was hard to wrap your head around. The story is very gripping, and as a reader you just can't wait to find out what happens next, and especially in the end with Ignacio. Both women on both sides are fighting for Ignacio, both not knowing about the fight of the other. They both mean it for the best of Ignacio, but it is obvious one of the two will lose.
A very moving, gripping and beautiful book. If there is one book I would highly recommend this is definately the one!!
