PositiveThe New York TimesThough some veer close to stereotype, Cásares is to be commended for trying to address the invisibility of what Nina’s brother calls \'the illegal ones,\' those who come (as Nina says) \'with no names, no pasts, no futures.\' There is an attempt at full humanity — but where the novel succeeds most is in its second half, when we get the full story of \'the other boy\' in the pink house ... Cásares beautifully shows us that anyone can become part of a family and that where you come from is \'nothing more than that\' — where you come from. It isn’t where your story ends, \'only where it begins.\' Instead of being just a border novel or a novel about immigration writ large, it becomes more than that: It’s a novel about the great lengths humans will go to in order to be seen, to be touched, to be loved.
