I always have a hard time reviewing memoirs because it is hard to review someone telling you about their life. I will stick to what I liked regarding the way that the story was told. I really did enjoy how this story was told through a child narrator and didn't feel that this made the reading experience any less valuable. I think that reading it through a child's perspective added to the story because these are probably very real thoughts that the author had while navigating this experience. I also really enjoyed the way this story walks you through certain moments and you can see everything that is going on around the narrator.

Simply and beautifully told memoir of nine-year-old Javier traveling to get from his grandparents home in El Salvador to reunite with his parents in the US. The family hired a "coyote" to take him on the two-week through Guatemala and Mexico to the US, but it ends up taking almost two months, where he is with a group of strangers also trying to get to the US.

“Solito” by Javier Zamora is the author’s account of his migration from El Salvador to the United States. This book was written when Zamora was an adult, but he tells his story from the perspective of the nine year old boy who embarked on a journey that no child should ever have to endure to live safely with family. The book feels long at times, but each time I felt this way, I reminded myself how long this journey must feel for anyone whose choices are limited to life or death, especially for the young people who do this each day. Until reading “Solito,” I was never that familiar with the actually path that migrants take to hopefully reach the United States. This includes details about weeks in hotel rooms or homes, the relationship with coyotes, and the cities migrants traverse. I’d love to see a young adult adaptation of this as Zamora seems like he would do a really great job making this important topic digestible for young people.

Memoirs are one of my favorite things to read and I was looking forward to this one. Unfortunately, this has a lot of repetition and seems distanced in the telling, making it hard to stay engaged. I'm giving it three stars because it's an important story. I think the fault is more on the editorial decisions than the story itself.

I don't like rating memoirs or autobiographies since they are so personal and detail someone's life experience. This one wasn't the smoothest of reading experiences since I didn't gel with the narrative style and voice, but I'm still glad I read it. It was my first immigrant memoir and as a reader, I lived through so many unimaginable things along with our nine-year-old narrator.

An incredible story told with honesty and urgency, capturing the perspective of the author at nine as he faces the terrifying experience of crossing borders to reunite with his family. This is a story about the ways in which strangers take care of one another, but also how they must harden themselves in order to survive a journey in which too many people have been lost upon attempting. The intense risk he and his family took to send him to what his family hoped would be a better life felt so sacred and intense; I have a nine-year-old son myself, though I didn't find myself imagining Zamora's narrator/self as my son. Instead, I thought of all the elementary children we have in our community whose parents took risks in leaving the familiar to protect their sweetest and most important people.

The writing is clear and easy to read and often dips in the lyric reality of each landscape. Once I realized Zamora is also a Copper Canyon poet, I put his collection, Unaccompanied, right into my online cart, and I look forward to cracking its spine and seeing it through this lens as well. I hope to bring Zamora's work into my classroom, especially as we tackle social justice issues (in which students will have a choice of books to read, which include Exit, West and The Devil's Highway, both incredible books about immigration.

I'm so glad Javier Zamora made it and that he's given us the gift of his story--an incredible and brave experience (both the storytelling and the story itself).

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

My favorite book I've read in a long time. I've already purchased multiple copies as Christmas gifts for friends and family. I love NetGalley because it allows me to read on the train to and from work every day (about an hour each week). Solito had my smiling, laughing, brows furrowed, crying while sandwiched between strangers. This is an engaging and beautiful story, and I DO agree that it's a new American classic. Everyone should read this book.

This book packs such a huge punch as Zamora paints an unflinching picture of his real, harrowing experience of traveling from El Salvador to the United States. Even though Zamora traveled as a nine year old child, he does not sanitize the horrors he experienced while telling his story. Many of these experiences are difficult to read which made my one sitting read of the book challenging to say the least. So many people need to read this book but only if those people have prepared and are willing to have their worldview challenged.

Zamora was just 9 years old when he travelled with other migrants to the US. He left El Salvador with a small group under the leadership of various coyotes, some unscrupulous. This was a harrowing experience for Javier, however there is humour in his telling. Parts are repetitive, however it is well-written. Zamora is a poet.

Feeling completely moved and rattled from "Solito" by Javier Zamora. An unfathomable experience, an incredible journey of a boy from El Salvador to America. A profound tale, I appreciate your sharing this story with us readers. Thank you to NetGalley, the author and publisher for the review copy. All opinions are my own.

Imagine being 10 years old and sent on a journey across the border “Solito”, alone -without your family. This is the raw, gritty memoir of Javier Zamora’s two month quest to be reunited with his parents in the US.

I have a ten year old boy so this hit hard to think of Javier making this difficult journey with nobody he knew, facing hunger, guns, deportation and the monkey cage, as he called it. He was scared, tired and hungry and had to rely on strangers to become his family. He narrates the book himself and has a somewhat poetic clipped style.

I don’t like to rate most memoirs. This is his story and he earned his right to tell it in every detail. My only issue is that it was a LOT of detail.

Since I am a boymom perhaps it shouldn’t surprise me that a lot of the details centered around things like poop, farts, eye boogers, and being stinky and dirty. Not to take away from Javier’s story, but these details got repetitive at times and overall I thought the book was too long, but again, so was this boy’s journey. By the end I will say I had tears in my eyes for this little boy and his struggle.

I hope he was able to reunite with his migration “family” and find out where they are now.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for an advanced copy of this wonderful book.

Solito is the memoir of Javier Zamora's migration from El Salvador to the U.S. when he was 9 years old. It is a story you will never forget.

It was an amazing experience to see this journey through the eyes of a 9-year-old. Young Javier speaks in a poetic voice and is able to communicate child-like innocence, wonder, fear and confusion. In the beginning of the story, we meet his family. Javier lives in a small village in El Salvador with his grandparents and Aunt. His parents already migrated to the U.S. and saved money for Javier to come with a coyote. At 9 years of age the coyote has determined that Javier if old enough to begin this journey. What is to take 2 weeks ends up taking several months as paid coyotes disappear and routes change due to unforeseen circumstances. Javier travels with other refuges who become his family through this ordeal.

This book was beautifully written, and I will be recommending it to everyone!

A wonderful deep dive I to life in the poverty stricken streets of El Salvador and how to nativigate them successfully when you view the world through the lens of a poet. Immersive, unforgettable and educational.

This book felt very long. Every minute detail was shared.. You must be incredibly desperate to send your 9 year old son on a journey like this, I just think it would have made more of an emotional impact/connection if the author had shared why he was sent alone on this journey. As a parent, I can't even begin to image how horrible this must have been for his parents, no way to know where he was, no way to contact him.

This was an amazing story. I couldn't put it down. It was a tale of grit, grace and humility. What the author endured as a young child is beyond most children's comprehension. A must read!

This was absolutely a 5 star for me. So many emotions reading this. It should be required reading. We read the headlines and are quick to form content about immigration, this puts the humanity in the story.

This was such a powerful and memorable memoir about when Javier was 9 years old and crossed the border into the U.S. from El Salvador. He wrote it through the perspective of his 9-year-old self, so innocent and full of imagination, even through such a difficult experience.

The book ebbed and flowed, mirroring their journey, feeling long and slow at times, and quick and heart-racing at others. Overall, it was a beautifully and poetically written memoir and I highly recommend it.

Thank you to Hogarth Press and NetGalley for an egalley of this book!

I LOVED this memoir! Zamora is such a prolific and lyrical writer. This is a book that should be in every library! I enjoyed reading from the perspective of a 9-year old. Javiercito's story needs to be heard and read!

Thank you PRHaudio for the complimentary audiobook

Important stories don’t always have to be the loudest ones. Sometimes the small voice of a child can be the catalyst that moves hearts and minds. SOLITO is Javier Zamora’s memoir that recounts his harrowing journey from El Salvador to America as a nine year old boy. Zamora left his home without any family to be reunited with his parents in the US after years of separation.

As a mother of boys, I couldn’t imagine sending them on an arduous journey and putting their life in the hands of a coyote (leader) to cross the border safely. At times the pacing was slower but this was reflective of the tension of waiting inherent to such a journey.

The writing was poetic and often read like a fictional story. This story is Javier’s, but also thousands of others. The audiobook was powerful as Javier narrates his story through the eyes of his nine-year old self. Listening to his experience will stay with me in a way that reading words on a page might not.

SOLITO was a @readwithjenna selection and a perfect book to pick up for Hispanic Heritage Month.

RATING: 4/5
PUB DATE: September 6, 2022

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for an electronic ARC in exchange for an honest review.

What an incredible story. The playful monologue of Javier felt true to form for a 9-year-old, and sometimes belied the horror of the reality that was, and continues to be, the reality for so many people of all ages seeking to cross borders. I'm not personally drawn to memoirs or nonfiction much, but Zamora's narrative style was so beautiful, it drew me briskly through the torturous tedium of Javier's unending bus rides and blistering desert days.