Fine writing. Rings true to my time in San Antonio, The Valley and Northern Mexico. Rain Of Gold is a good companion piece. ( )

Some of the chapters were slightly disjointed, obviously written as stand-alone pieces and only later folded into a chapter of this memoir. An important story of those that headed Norte, and the long generational echos of past choices and traumas. ( )

Just could not fully get into this book. Although it is well written, I have just two words for you: "Who Cares?" Certainly, I did not.

This book was about the family history of two families...The Garcias and the Santos family. A very weak mystery plot of one of the relatives found dead in the river was also added. The book basically details the family history of these two families as they made their way from Mexico to San Antonio here in the us. It goes into very descriptive accounts of the different family members and discusses some of their day to day as the family went on.

I felt that this book was the Sienfeld of Genealogy. It had much to do about nothing. There was no real purpose other than cataloging events of both families as they came across. He made such a big deal about how the families were losing their heritage from generation to generation that it made me nauseous. He calls it losing one's heritage and family history, I call it evolution. Its time to move on people!

I guess his challenge and the challenge of the book was to see if he can put the histories together. I guess he did but, me as the reader, really didn't care. Thats nice...Not thrilling...but nice. So you are asking, why did you read it?

1} I read it to discuss in my monthly book club.
2} I actually enjoyed the descriptions of San Antonio...the town I live in now. I tried to picture it as he described it back in its hey day.
3} The actual writing was not bad. I guess he kept me interested in the "What's next" Category.

But there is little else here. You don't really care about the characters. You come to accept the history as it is the "Part of Life" category. Meaning, Yes the Spaniards came in and mixed their race with the Indian race that was there. Yes, there was a lot of civil uprising in Mexico at the time to make the people there risk moving north to America. Yes, there was a lot of hardship and strife. Yes, the people were simplistic and just did what they had to do to get by.....shall I continue? After awhile, it got very mundane and I thought...with no real purpose at the end of the book. I guess what he felt good about was that he could recollect all of these little stories and compile them into one single tome.
( )

There were some amazing visual moments in this book, but for the most part it was quite hard to follow and somewhat boring to read. Santos has great skill as a writer, as can be seen in some of the high points of the book, but the book itself just did not work for me at all. That said, there are some cultural and family elements in the book that are truly fascinating, and worth reading, no matter what one thinks of the book as a whole. I can see why it has gotten so much praise in some circles. It's just definitely not for me. ( )

I found this book tucked into a history section that I had been asked to review. I was drawn in by the remarkable title "Places left unfinished at the time of creation." I stayed because the language is incredibly luminous. Santos is a poet, and uses amazing imagery to describe his growing up, his family and his ancestors. He is a third generation Mexican American, clearly of the generation that really takes flight, dispersed from the ancestral home of San Antonio, TX. Valuable for all who treasure beautiful language, as well as anyone interested in immigrant studies ( )