MixedThe New York Times Book ReviewThe author of two other novels, Altschul has also written about U.S. politics, with a righteous indignation not unlike Leo’s. Still, he is most insightful when dissecting the romantic allure, for a certain kind of left-leaning Westerner, of a third world country whose social reality seems more black and white, the solutions simpler ... Unfortunately, Altschul fails to convincingly imagine how a young, middle-class American Jewish woman, whatever her priors, could make the leap to armed struggle ... Leo’s radicalization is improbably swift, driven in equal parts by ideology and mere petulance. Her Peruvian comrades, meanwhile, read like revolutionary caricatures ... The novel’s sharpest insight may lie in connecting Andres’s selfish reinvention with Leo’s apparently selfless one. Both are acts of privilege, unavailable to people from poor countries.
