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.

here are no words to describe the power, the emotion, and the fluid storytelling this book had for me. When I tell you I was in tears (multiple times, and sobbed at the end for quite some time) and was moved to my core while completely engrossed in the story.

This memoir is the immigration story of Javier who at ten years old leaves his family in El Salvador to join his parents who are in San Rafael, California and who he hasn't since seen since he was one and five respectively. It is a journey he takes alone, his grandfather accompanies him the first 1/4 of the way and then he is left in the trust of strangers to complete his journey into the US. These three people, Pati, a mother with her own daughter Carla (who is about his age) and Chino, a young guy who's destination is Virgina. Throughout their journey they face perils like the heat of the desert (and its equally trying freezing nights), Border patrol, dehydration, days at a time in hiding before attempting to cross and risking their lives to have a chance at a better one in the United States.

There were so much powerful imagery, having migrated myself; the sound of helicopter blades in a pitch dark desert, hiding in bushes while a helicopter light splices through the dark night, freezing and running and the fear of being caught. It was so visceral and while I've tried in the past to explain my own journey (with some parallels to this one) I have always struggled to explain it- this book reminded me so much of that uncertainty that to his point as children when we experience this, we lock away and as family (I crossed once with my brother alone once when I was 11 and he was 5) we don't talk about, so you never really have moments of healing or venting because "it's in the past"

I can honestly say that if you are looking for a story that is very close to explaining the immigrant story and understanding why someone would risk it all to have a better life; this one is pretty spot on.

Thank you Javier Zamora for sharing your story and to the publishers for the galley. This book is out now and really hope it reaches a wide audience (its a TODAY SHOW read with Jenna pick this month! yay)

Solito is the memoir of Javier Zamora’s perilous journey as a nine year old, from his home country of El Salvador to the United States. Javier’s parents already made the journey and are living stateside, desperate to have their son with them. Don Dago, the local coyote (a term used for those who smuggle individuals across the Texas-Mexican border), says he cannot bring Javier until he is older. Javier patiently waits for his opportunity - to have “an adventure” as his parents keep referring to it to - until that day comes in April 1999. His journey is anticipated to take two weeks and his grandpa helps him memorize every city that he will have to stop at along the way, but ultimately he must leave his young grandson in the hands of strangers in the hopes he makes it alive. This memoir is heart breaking and gives the reader a visceral experience of what happens when a two-week journey is derailed by dishonest coyotes and morphs into seven long weeks of treacherous migration over ocean, along pavement, and through desert. Javier discloses in his afterward and acknowledgements, that this memoir was only possible through the difficult work he did in therapy, to process the trauma of his journey and recover the memories long hidden away. While there is a child-like innocence in the writing style, staying true to his experience as a boy, you can feel an emotional, cathartic release in the way he writes. This was a stunning memoir and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

In this amazing memoir, we hear the story of Javier who as a very young boy traveled from El Salvador to the United States to join his parents. But he did so alone, leaving his grandparents. Javier shares his journey and trials as he joined a small group of strangers led by an unknown “coyote”. Heading into the unknown, he experiences a harrowing adventure through the desert, crawling under fences, riding on a perilous boat trips, hiding, capture, betrayal by those who were to protect this young boy, and yet he also found kindness and love from his fellow migrants. What was promised a two-week trip, became months long. It is a journey that will change him forever. Well written and fast paced, I found that I couldn’t put this down. The vivid descriptions, the courage he must have had. It was very moving. At times however, it was confusing when the language switched to Spanish phrases, which I am not fluent in, and so I felt I may have lost some content. However, in telling of such an emotional tale, I believe that it was only proper that he would slip back into his native language. While the migration of people into the US is a hot topic, this helps to foster greater understanding why they need to or choose to and how it is not easy to leave behind all that you’ve known in your life. These migrants were people looking for a better life. Inspiring and uplifting, I recommend you read this memoir. You will be thinking of this young boy after the last page. This is a story of hope.

Many thanks to #netgalley #solito #javierzamora for the opportunity to read and review this book.

I want to thank NetGalley and Hogarth for providing me with an advanced copy of the e-book in exchange for my honest review.

I’m reminded of the quote “no one puts their child in a boat unless the water is safer than the land”

And while the child in this book crossed water, desert, and every type of land - the sentiment remains. Solito is a force and a MUST read. You will choke up, your breath will get caught in your throat, your heart will fill and drop on every page. This is a novel that tells the story of nine year old Javier and his migration to the US. Maybe it is the ignorance of bliss that is youth, Javier is excited about his “trip” and does not realize all that it will entail, and how could he even begin to fathom - as he is nine and will make the journey unaccompanied by any family - but the end goal is it will reunite him with his parents in La USA. What follows is a harrowing seven week journey, that truly through the kindness of strangers, Javiers incredible strength and will, and his faith in his family and their promises - we have this story. I can’t recommend it highly enough. Everyone should read it and gain a greater understanding and empathy for what people are willing to go through in order to provide a better life for their family.

I was offered an e-arc of this so I didn’t actually chose it. I tried several times to get through the story and found myself drifting. I wanted to skip pages and finish already.
It was fair to compare to Educated because that set the bar high. It wasn’t at all like Educated. I’m giving this a 2⭐️
Thanks to the publisher who reached out to me via NetGalley.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC. I appreciated Javier’s story and can understand the hard journey he had making it into the US. I struggled with some of the parts of the story.

This is an absolutely stunning memoir, that reads like a novel, and I think it should be required reading for all.

At the age of nine, Zamora migrated to the US to be reunified with his parents. He was denied a visa twice. It’s not easy getting a visa, y’all. It can take years.

So he made the journey that countless others have made before him. Traveling through Guatemala and Mexico. With no other family members, just the group he was traveling with, and a coyote hired to help them cross the borders; people who ultimately became his family. It’s a difficult read. But the way Zamora recalls those months, that were supposed be weeks, finding beauty during his travels is both heartbreaking yet filled with wonder and hope.

The way he writes about El Salvador and his family hit so close to home for me, being a Salvadoreña and I loved reading the slang, and about the food, and aching so much to be back there as a kid, listening to “vamos a la cama, para descansar” play on the tv that was a signal that all kids had to go to bed. IYKYK.

It is absolutely necessary that all of y’all read this. I’m so damn proud that this memoir exists.

This is the riveting true account of how the author, at age 9, ALONE, traveled from El Salvador to the U.S. His parents, who had traveled over the border years earlier, paid a Coyote to take him, along with large groups of people, on this harrowing journey. It seems unthinkable that they would send this child by himself on such a dangerous trip, but no explanations were given for their reasons. Maybe their trips, years earlier, were relatively easy and they trusted the Coyote that had brought them safely over the border to do the same for their son. If so, this trust was misplaced and had dire consequences. The journey took seven weeks and was full of extreme danger and suffering. The boy was terrified and alone until a woman with her daughter started keeping an eye on him. Later a man joined them and the foursome grew to care for one another, becoming a pseudo family for the boy. During those seven weeks, his parents heard nothing about what had befallen him, or even if he was alive.
Reading this gripping story gave me even more sympathy for the desperate migrants who risk their lives to cross the Mexican border, and especially for the “Dreamers” who are brought to the U.S. as children. Fortunately, the author’s story had a happy ending. He rejoined his parents and went on to a very successful future.
I strongly recommend this book. Written by a highly skilled poet, this enlightening book is a pleasure to read, and kept me engrossed from start to finish.

Solito tells the story of nine-year-old Javier as he migrated from El Salvador to La USA in 1999. His parents were already in America and he traveled unaccompanied with a group of strangers. What was originally supposed to be a two-week trip ended up taking significantly longer.

Javier’s journey was one of wonder, determination, and fear. He wrote this book from the perspective of his nine-year-old self, which added a layer of innocence to the story. This was an important read as many of us don’t truly understand what it is like for many people who migrate to this country. I took my time reading this book and reading it was like a journey in itself. The most beautiful part of this story was the connection Javier formed with his pretend family: Patricia, Carla, and Chino. They treated each other as real family and took care of one another. They experienced all of the ups and downs with each other. Javier says he never forgot them and hopes this book will help him reconnect with them. I can’t even imagine what he had to go through and I’m grateful he is sharing his story with the world.

Absolutely amazing and heart wrenching story of a 9-year-old boy making the journey from El Salvador, through Guatemala and Mexico, by himself to be with his parents in the United States. It is full of love and hope and the kindness of strangers but with a generous helping of fear, loneliness, and pain. The writing is exquisite by this author/poet. What makes this story all the more poignant is knowing this journey played out multiple times daily over the past several decades and continues to do so. This is definitely a best book of the year for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and Hogarth/Penguin Random House Publishers for the ARC to read and review.

Solito is such a powerful and emotional memoir. After his parents flee as a result of the civil war, nine-year old Javier emigrates from El Salvador to the United States with a group of coyotes/smugglers and strangers in what he hopes will be a 2-week journey but ultimately takes two months. This memoir follows his ordeal over the course of more than 3000 miles.

Javier Zamora is a poet and it shows in this beautiful and haunting memoir. His story on its own is visceral, overwhelming, and suspenseful, but the language he uses to describe his experience provides a type of lulling comfort. As you're reading, you feel as though you are there with him as a child, experiencing what he is experiencing; hurting when he is hurting.

This book is moving and powerful - an absolute must read, particularly if you have any interest in immigration and the US policy around it.

I want to thank Netgalley and Hogarth Press for my gifted e-arc. Solito was one of my most anticipated books coming out in '22. I am Salvadoran so whenever I see a book by a Central American author it goes on my list! I am loving that we are getting more and more books each year.

I thought the book was really emotional and anybody that wants to know more of what is like to immigrate to the US should pick up this book. It is really incredible what Javier Zamora lived through on his journey and that he was able to survive. I just can not imagine what his family was going through those weeks while he was on his difficult journey and not knowing if he was alive. As a mom, I just kept thinking of how difficult the choice was to make of having your child come to the US without a family member. It's something that I am so grateful that I've never had to go through, but I have actually seen a few family members go through. Honestly this book really made me feel a bit ignorant because for some reason, I thought immigrating to the US was an easy journey until you got to the Mexico/US border. My parents and my husband, they don't really ever talk about their journey coming here. After reading this book, it made me ask them more about it and I can see to this day, they still have difficulty talking about it even though its been decades.

So again, thank you for the publisher for this book. I think a lot of people could learn a lot from it or at least have some empathy towards immigrants only wanting a better life in the US.

Solito is such a powerful and emotional memoir. Nine-year old Javier emigrates from El Salvador to the United States with a group of coyotes/smugglers and strangers in what will hopefully be a 2-week journey. We follow his ordeal over the course of 3000 miles and the story is moving, visceral, and suspenseful. I am so hopeful that the publication of this book will help Zamora reunite with Chino, Patricia, and Carla who he admittedly owes his life to. I’ll be thinking about this story for a long time to come.

Thank you to Random House Publishing Group - Random House, Hogarth and NetGalley for this ARC.

What an amazing story of resilience, strength, and love. I couldn’t put this memoir down and, at times, couldn’t believe it wasn’t fictional.

This book is incredible. Before I even get into any of my review: this is an important memoir, it’s impeccably well written, and I so highly suggest putting it on your radar if reading about a child migrant’s perilous journey all the way from El Salvador to La USA intrigues you.

So first of all, thanks to NetGalley and Hogarth Press for putting Solito in my email inbox, and approving me to read and review it. I knew instantly that this was a must-read when I read that super compelling summary. So glad I jumped on it.

In the beginning of Solito, we get to know Javier as he is in the time between when both his parents have migrated to the USA, and he’s still in El Salvador. He lived a normal kid life in El Salvador, besides his parents being gone. He went to school, he helped his grandmother and grandfather, and he spent a lot of time with his aunt, Mali. I loved his relationship with her and I’m so glad it was included in the book, so the reader can really get to know him before his “trip”. They snuggle to sleep and are just so loving.

When it’s finally time for Javier to make the journey to his parents, he has to just leave school without even saying goodbye to his friends. Nobody can know what he plans to do. How hard would that have to be for a 9-year-old? I’m sure it was just so difficult.

The first bit of Javier’s journey, he gets to take a bus up through Guatemala with his grandpa. His relationship with his grandpa was not very deep before the trip, but they end up growing so close as they spend hours taking multiple busses through Guatemala. Their goodbye was rather heartbreaking, and the way Javier describes the love that grew between them was just beautiful. His grandfather can only go to the Mexican border, then has to leave Javier in the care of others (and a coyote who will lead them all the way through Mexico) and return to El Salvador.

Just imagine that. You’re on a journey that’s perilous, but you don’t really know what might happen, or even what could happen. At 9 years old, you’re just going along and hoping for the best, and that’s really what Javier ends up doing. He relies a lot on the group he ends up travelling with, and they end up growing very close, like a family, as they try to make it across the border.

When Javier has to cross the desert on foot…these scenes are difficult to read, and I’m sure were incredibly difficult for Javier to write and recount. He does mention in his author note having help from his therapist to access and revisit all those feelings, and I can see why. He walked for HOURS and so many miles across the desert, only to be captured by border patrol. And then? He does it all over again.

You can tell Javier is a poet, as he writes so much about the scenes, smells, and textures associated with his time in the desert. The way he names the different types of cacti to give himself something to do, something concrete to take note of, is amazing. He was NINE. And through the whole ordeal, the love that grows between him and his fake family is just…oh my heart. So good.

Overall, this book reads like an epic adventure. It was so, so good. The ONLY, only thing I will nitpick is that there’s a lot of untranslated Spanish. I spent a lot of time on my phone on Google Translate so I could get their jokes and figure out what they were talking about. As I got further through the book, I stopped doing that as much and just took in the context, but it would have been nice to have more of that translated.

Translation aside, this memoir is most definitely a 5-star read. I absolutely loved Solito.

I did not know this was a memoir when I started this e-arc, courtesy of NetGalley and Hogarth Press in exchange for my honest review. The trauma Javier endured to be with his parents is unthinkable. I just kept thinking about the many more people who attempt this journey, and who have attempted this last chance to find some peace- and that was before I got to the post-script and realized it was a memoir. This book is not for young children, as it is an honest and gutting moment in Javier's life as he was just beginning puberty and going alone to a new home. This book compels the necessity for humanity to be created in this country, long long overdue.

Solito by Javier Zamora is an outstanding memoir of what it’s like to cross into the United States with a “coyote”. I had an inkling of what a coyote did when I read the novel American Dirt. Solito is a memoir I will always remember and continue to suggest to my friends.

This book.
This is such an amazing story. Javier Zamora is only a couple of years older than my daughter. I can't imagine her traveling from our country all the way to the United States to join us. I held my heart as I read each word. I wanted to hold the nine-year-old and care for him.
One of the best memoirs I've read in 2022!