Title: Mecca
Author: Susan Straight
Genre: family saga fiction
Thank you, NetGalley, for this book.
Sigh. Another white woman writing about people of color. Just no. This trend has got to stop. Let Black and Latinx people speak for themselves. Why do these books keep getting published? This book wasn’t even very good. So disjointed and threads all over the place. Some come together, but some don’t at all. The writing was good, but the plot was such a mess.
From Goodreads: Johnny Frías has California in his blood. A descendant of the state’s Indigenous people and Mexican settlers, he has Southern California’s forgotten towns and canyons in his soul. He spends his days as a highway patrolman pulling over speeders, ignoring their racist insults, and pushing past the trauma of his rookie year, when he killed a man assaulting a young woman named Bunny, who ran from the scene, leaving Johnny without a witness. But like the Santa Ana winds that every year bring the risk of fire, Johnny’s moment of action twenty years ago sparked a slow-burning chain of connections that unites a vibrant, complex cast of characters in ways they never see coming.
In Mecca, the celebrated novelist Susan Straight crafts an unforgettable American epic, examining race, history, family, and destiny through the interlocking stories of a group of native Californians all gasping for air. With sensitivity, furor, and a cinematic scope that captures California in all its injustice, history, and glory, she tells a story of the American West through the eyes of the people who built it—and continue to sustain it. As the stakes get higher and the intertwined characters in Mecca slam against barrier after barrier, they find that when push comes to shove, it’s always better to push back.
Sure, this is what the book is about, but it just never comes together. You never spend enough time with one character to ever care about any of them. I went ahead and finished so I could write an honest review, but really, this book was just a waste of my time.
Pleasant Nights 