First book done - 11.11.11 project

I was very excited this morning when I realized it was 1/11/11 and I only had about 20 pages of my book left to read. I was exhausted when I got home today, I've been working 10.5 hour days this week when my normal schedule is 7.5 hour days. Normally if I was arriving home so tired I'd just turn on the netflix, but I made myself finish the book and blog tonight. How exciting, eleven days into my 11.11.11. project, and I'm done with book one!



The first book I read was called
Mexican Enough: My Life between the Borderlines by Stephanie Elizondo Griest. I first became familiar with Ms. Griest's writing by reading a preview on Amazon.com of her previos book Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana about her time spent living in Communist and former Communist countries. I loved what I read on the preview, but as often happens, I didn't end up buying the book. But I did buy
from Amazon instead. Did I mention I bought this book in the summer of 2009? It gets sadder, I took this book with me on my trip to Mexico (clever, right?) but never finished the first chapter. Since then, this book has been mocking me on my bookshelf. Of all the unread books on my shelf, this one spoke loudest, as I couldn't even find the time to read it when I was on vacation! So I knew it was first on my "To be read" list.

The premise of this book is that Stephanie, a twenty-something child of one white parent and one Mexican parent travels to Mexico in attempt to learn and understand her Mexican roots better. Unfortunately, I found her desire to be a journalist often took away from the story.

She was constantly setting off to interview people who were involved in Mexican current events, and cramming their stories and issues into a book that had been sold to me under the premise of a story about someone searching for themselves. After all, the quote on the cover says "This is a travel journal for the new millennium, a biracial woman searching for herself among the complexities of the borderlands." -Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street

The parts in the book where she was exploring herself and truly open I enjoyed -like when she considers adopting a Zapotec girl, and what that would mean for her lifestyle, and for the girl. But there were so many interviews in the book, with so many people, on so many subjects, at times it just felt like I was reading a newspaper with articles about Mexico. I'm still considering picking up Around the Bloc: My Life in Moscow, Beijing, and Havana
at some point.

I'd only give Mexican Enough a three star rating on a five star scale.