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Aug 31, 2013chickadee47 rated this title 1 out of 5 stars
If you are a person of color many things in this book might rub you the wrong way. My husband had to read this for his ESL class and he was laughing at how inaccurately his country was described. The author clearly meant well but betrays his biases through bizarre, unnecessary details. For example: cliched broken English in a thought narrative for an Asian character, a young Black man from Cleveland describing himself as a "jungle beast", not one but two pregnant Latina teens, and a white savior-esque character who voluntarily moves to a poor urban neighborhood to play peacemaker after retiring from the UN. There are some touching moments in the narratives but these issues seriously detracted from my enjoyment of the book.