When the Ground Turns in its Sleep by Sylvia Sellers-García

The blurb on the dust cover of When the Ground Turns in its Sleep by Sylvia Sellers-García sounded interesting and mysterious. Nítido Amán knows only that he was born in Guatemala and that his parents left there when he was a small child. They stayed silent about their past throughout his life so after his father's death, Amán realizes he must seek out the truth on his own and travels to the small town of Río Roto.

If you'd asked me halfway through this book if I was enjoying it, I would have said no. To begin with, I found it confusing. Not only was I confused, the narrator of the book spoke often of double meanings and his own confusion. Then, in the midst of narrating the story, he would address his dead father (for example: "what did you think when you saw this?"). This always startled me into thinking the narrator was speaking to me personally. Finally, I just didn't care for the narrator. What I considered a lack of integrity on his part totally rubbed me the wrong way.

Never bad enough to give up on, I hung in there to the end and things fell into place as I read on. However, I never developed any fondness for the central character... or any of the characters, for that matter.

I read this book for the Global Reading Challenge. Central America (Guatemala) counts towards either North or South America so I've chosen to make this my second book for North America.