Customer Reviews

Mexican Enough: My Life between the Borderlines

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
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I loved this author's other books, so I was really looking forward to "Mexican Enough." It does not disappoint. She routinely throws herself into the craziest situations (like sneaking into a prison in Oaxaca, or spending the night in a Zapatista camp in Chiapas) and finds the most amazing stories. I learned so much about Mexico, from the impact of NAFTA and immigration, to pop culture like lucha libre (think: Nacho Libre). Some of the stories are pretty heartbreaking, but there is a lot of humor as well. Even though I am not Latina, I can relate to her questioning her cultural identity, and whether or not she is "enough." It also reminds me of this ongoing debate about Obama being "black enough." That makes this an especially timely book.

I found this amazing book to be very compelling. This author always gets to the very core of the people, visiting areas where tourists do not tend to tread. In Mexico, she not only does not hide the bad and ugly, but also takes us into the private lives of the good and the beautiful. Reading her book was like being her travel companion on her personal quest for the holy identity Grail. I highly recommend this book for anybody interested in Mexico. We all share in its history, its people and its culture. I also highly recommend this book to anybody wanting to take a journey of discovery into their own ancestral motherland. Stephanie inspires one to do so.

Stephanie Elizondo Griest tells the story of her experience journeying through Mexico with such a down-to-earth tone, you feel as if you are right there with her. I think that anyone who is interested in discovering their roots would find it both interesting and entertaining. It is a very easy read, and most definitely a page-turner. You have to admire her guts.

I'm 63 and it has been a long time since I've seen anything new and refreshing in the writing field. I seldom ever finish a book anymore because it starts to look like the same ole thing after a few chapters.
Not this time! If you are the kind of person who visits a place and wonders what it's like to live there, this book is for you. It doesn't matter if Mexico is not one of those places you would visit, it doesn't matter how old you are, you will find a refreshing writing style that transends the location and ages.
The author transports you to the Mexico where ordinary people (I didn't say typical people although some are) live, but that's not the only message I got from this work. The author went to places that most Mexicans would avoid. The message I got was that the human spirit is the same in all places and I got a new understanding of what it like to live on the fringes in Mexico in addition to the mainstream.
The book was fun. Sure it was about a youngster traveling in a foreign country but it was a lot more than travel story, it was story for all ages.

When she finally buried her shovel in Mexican soil she had no idea how rich the ground might be. No longer satisfied with simply being considered a Latina on applications, Griest, who learned Russian to travel in the former Soviet Union and Chinese to live in China, decided it was finally time to learn Spanish by traveling Mexico.

In her best and most heartfelt book yet, Griest documents both her amazing process of embracing the wild, dangerous, loving, and enthralling calliope that is Mexico and its volatile political and social atmosphere. Along her way, Griest meets farmers and activists, gay men and macho wrestlers, revolutionaries and victims of violence. Each encounter changes both writer and reader.

All the while the main question is hovers in the sky: What does it mean to be Mexican? Can a woman from Texas with roots in rural Mexico and the Kansas prairie find her reflection in brown eyes or blue eyes?

Read the book. Griest's journey resonates with all of us who struggle to define ourselves in a complicated world.

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I picked this book up the day after Thanksgiving and plopped down on the couch, warm and comfy with a full belly. I did not put it down for any significant length of time until finishing it midday Saturday. Ms. Greist is a very talented storyteller and a fine writer. I have read many books about Mexico and this now ranks among my favorites.

She did not head south for cheap souvenirs or tequila or whatever it is most people seek. Instead, she flew directly to Mexico City and found herself living with a bunch of other young adults, fully immersed in the culture. She does not spare herself when describing some of her weaknesses, one of which led to her being kicked out of the house she'd spent a few months in.

Armed now with a better appreciation of the culture and workable Spanish, she headed deeper into the countryside to acquaint herself with Mexico's other modes of living. She is a quick study and found a lot of interesting people to speak with, and her journalistic instincts almost made her a peripheral character in this book. Again, she shows a fundamentally decent core while viewing her weaknesses unflinchingly, in a way that was almost painful to read.

It's hard to think of how a book like this might be wrapped up, but she scored points at the end as well. If you like this, you might also enjoy Alice Adams 'Mexico' and William Langeweische's "Cutting for Sign," which cover much the same territory -- personal and politcal, respectively.

Mexican Enough is about a womens journey to find out who she is. She is half mexican and half white but her mother did not raise her under the same culture in which she had been brought up. She begins to question who she is as a "mexican" when she starts to see how different she really is from everybody mexican that surrounds her. Eventually the emptiness that she feels leads to her taking a trip and returning to where her ancestors were from to try to figure out who she is through their lives and the lives of those she encounters along the way. It is an excellent read and it is very addicting. It is a very easy book to jump in and out of and it shows a lot of real life connections that makes it so intersting.

Upon reading this for a class, I was very intrigued by the book. I am not often drawn into reading class assigned reading, but this book really was something. The author was lost about her self identity when it came to her culture and heritage, and so she took a journey to Mexico to find herself while immersing herself in the culture she once estranged.

Pros:
The author kept the writing of the book in good tone being more conversational and less formal about her writing. It was this that helped keep me most interested in the book, so as to not bore whatever reader with a monotonous voice that narrates an adventure into a foreign land. I also feel that the author was truly immersed in the culture of Mexico trying to experience all that she could while she was there.

Cons:
The author of this book is a journalist, and I found it somewhat crude to travel under the pretense of re-evaluating her inward look at herself and still bring her work into it (her work is ultimately what brings her closer to the goal she is trying to achieve, however). It is also an aspect of her character that was mentioned at some point in the book.

Overall it was a very entertaining book, and I enjoyed reading it very much.

If you're expecting to read the Mexico version of best-seller Eat, Pray, Love,Stephanie Elizondo Griest's latest book Mexican Enough probably has more serious social commentary than you've bargained for.

But if you're interested in some true tales that will illuminate many of the issues that are driving the recent upheaval in Mexico, this is the book for you.

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I read about 3 chapters and was so dissapointed - it didnt grab my attention so i put it down. I am an avid reader and this is very unlike me.