Book Review: Across A Hundred Mountains By Reyna Grande
Baloisa Martinez
Professor Doyen
English B50 MW 8:00-10:00
October 6, 2014
Across A Hundred Mountains Living in a poverty stricken area doesn’t have a lot to offer when one has a family to care for. Juana a young girl and her family in the book “Across a Hundred Mountains” by Reyna Grande endure many heartaches and suffering throughout the novel due to death, departure, and numerous complications. Grande uses several literary devices in her book to demonstrate what Juana and her family experienced their lifetime. The path to becoming who a person is can be a long and difficult journey that we must find on our own. For Juana she is forced to discover who she is at a very young age by witnessing her younger sisters’ passing, and her father
leaving them to “el otro lado” to fend for themselves. Juana’s character changes tremendously on account of everything she has gone through and seen when she was young, she becomes strong and determined when she realizes that she needs to watch over her mother as well as herself. In the book Juana as Adelina goes and searches for her father with the help of a man who was willing to cross the border the U.S to assist her. Grande writes, “Adelina shook her head and began to walk down to the pile. “I didn’t come to see a grave,” she said as she took off her backpack. “I came to find my father, and I will take him back with me, even if I have to carry his bones on my back” (2). This shows that Juana is committed to finding her father and will go through any obstacles that stand in her way. Not only is Juana’s character determined she is also strong, for she did what she had to do to get what she needed. At one point in the book Juana as Adelina turns to prostitution in order to obtain the slightest information of her father’s whereabouts. Juana says, “It’s been four weeks now, and I’m no closer to finding my father than I was when I first got here. There’s no other way. Those men will talk. I will make them tell me what they know” (184). Juana does everything she can to find her father due to her strength and determination. In the book Across a Hundred Mountains the tone of the novel is
Professor Doyen
English B50 MW 8:00-10:00
October 6, 2014
Across A Hundred Mountains Living in a poverty stricken area doesn’t have a lot to offer when one has a family to care for. Juana a young girl and her family in the book “Across a Hundred Mountains” by Reyna Grande endure many heartaches and suffering throughout the novel due to death, departure, and numerous complications. Grande uses several literary devices in her book to demonstrate what Juana and her family experienced their lifetime. The path to becoming who a person is can be a long and difficult journey that we must find on our own. For Juana she is forced to discover who she is at a very young age by witnessing her younger sisters’ passing, and her father
leaving them to “el otro lado” to fend for themselves. Juana’s character changes tremendously on account of everything she has gone through and seen when she was young, she becomes strong and determined when she realizes that she needs to watch over her mother as well as herself. In the book Juana as Adelina goes and searches for her father with the help of a man who was willing to cross the border the U.S to assist her. Grande writes, “Adelina shook her head and began to walk down to the pile. “I didn’t come to see a grave,” she said as she took off her backpack. “I came to find my father, and I will take him back with me, even if I have to carry his bones on my back” (2). This shows that Juana is committed to finding her father and will go through any obstacles that stand in her way. Not only is Juana’s character determined she is also strong, for she did what she had to do to get what she needed. At one point in the book Juana as Adelina turns to prostitution in order to obtain the slightest information of her father’s whereabouts. Juana says, “It’s been four weeks now, and I’m no closer to finding my father than I was when I first got here. There’s no other way. Those men will talk. I will make them tell me what they know” (184). Juana does everything she can to find her father due to her strength and determination. In the book Across a Hundred Mountains the tone of the novel is