Efrén Divided is the story of a kid born in America whose parents are undocumented immigrants from Mexico. He’s in middle school, and has normal middle school concerns, such as his best friend deciding to run for A.S.B. President in order to attract girls. His family lives in a small studio apartment – his parents and his younger siblings, who are twins in Kindergarten – and they aren’t wealthy but have lots of love and an Amá who takes good care of them.

Then Efrén’s Amá applies for a better job – and gets picked up in a raid and deported to Mexico. Efrén’s troubles begin. His Apá takes overtime hours to try to raise the money for Amá to hire a coyote and get home. But even getting the money to her is fraught with difficulty.

And meanwhile, Efrén needs to care for the twins and keep things going at home, never mind getting his homework done and supporting his friend David running for President. Efrén can’t even bring himself to tell David about Amá’s deportation, he’s so torn up inside.

When it comes time to get money to Amá to get home, Efrén is the one who needs to go into Tijuana to take it to her, since Apá is undocumented.

This book is gripping and powerful and makes the reader burn with the injustice of it all.

I wasn’t completely on board with how luck was handled, especially the good luck. Efrén has a lucky encounter in Tijuana, which completely saves the day, and he and Apá have other luck, too – which Amá does not have. That’s probably a lot of the point of the book – even that Efrén is lucky to have been born in the United States – but it put me off a tiny bit. I very much wanted Amá to have better luck, for sure – which is definitely a big part of the point of the book, to get the reader where we don’t think it’s right what happens to her.

So it’s a hard read, but a good one. It will get readers wanting to see things changed.