To paraphrase one part of the story: the Sierra Madre / Sonora / Chihuahua / Durango / Sinaloa / Mexico is the refuse dump of all of New Spain.

This book started off really good, but then it quickly settled in to essentially the same oft repeated theme every paragraph to every sentence. My interest became dulled to the point of really having to work to finish it.

The writing was good, and occasionally appealing. Like this part below:

"Témoris was a grubby, placid, little town with chickens scratching in the front yards, coffee-can flower gardens, and dogs sleeping under rusty old pickup trucks, saving their energy for all the barking they would have to do at night."

But I got tired of the repetitive narrative: norteño and narcocorrido music, AK-47s and guns in general, never-ending violence, rape and femicide, machismo and all its downsides, scorpions, crippling poverty and apathy, environmental destruction, cartels, mafiosos, narco everything (marijuana, cocaine, opium), pickups, cowboy boots made out of one endangered species or another, hats (cowboy / trucker) adorned with AK-47s or scorpions or pot leaves, and murder and vendettas feeding a forever series of murder and vendettas.

If that's your thing then this is a great book.

Towards the end of the book, page 241 to be exact, the author had this to say:

"We drank four or five gourds each and got nicely buzzed there on the rim of Sinforosa Canyon and it occurred to me that this was more or less the moment I had been looking for when I set out on his journey. Here I was in the heart of the Sierra Madre, about as far from consumer capitalism and the comfortably familiar as I could get, drinking tesguino with a wizened old Tarahumara and feeling that edgy, excited pleasure in being alive that follows a bad scare. It was an uncomfortable realization. To put it another way, here I was getting my kicks and curing my ennui in a place full of poverty and suffering, environmental and cultural destruction, widows and orphans from a slow-motion massacre. I tried to persuade myself that I was going to write something that would make a difference and help these people, but my capacity for self-delusion refused to stretch in that direction."

When I read that, I felt that it summarized the entire book which I'd gotten in the first 40-50 pages, but had taken the author weeks and months and 241 pages. God's Middle Finger is a fairly incredible story, but wasn't quite so fulfilling as a book. ( )

I have very mixed feelings here. The writer is engaging -- he tells a good story about a fascinating place. However, he also makes really, really stupid choices, so I find it hard to care when he puts himself in danger. I don't enjoy feeling judgmental about other people, so the whole cycle is very uncomfortable to me. I read about 3/4 of the book before it had to go back to the library, and I don't feel the need to hear the rest of the adventure.

On the other hand, I knew nothing about the Sierra Madres, and the history was a very interesting read. ( )

This travel narrative about the barbaric culture in the mountains just below the U.S. border is eye-opening. The author convincingly portrays the backwardness--the machismo--of the area. I don't know whether it was his intention, but unlike most travel writing that makes you want to visit the places being described, this one makes me want to never set foot in that part of the world. ( )

A thrilling page turner of an adventure novel. You learn the history and current state of north central Mexico's Sierra Madre mountain range as the author tries to travel its spine in order to see if it is really as dangerous as you have heard. It feels like a mix of Sebastian Junger and Ernest Hemingway. It's hard to tell if the overwhelming narco-traffic content is embellished, but I sense that it's not. It certainly gives more perspective on the nature of the drug trade coming from Mexico to the US, and the lifestyle of those willingly or unwillingly involved.

It's not often that I bring a book to work with me and hope for red lights to be longer so I can read a bit more on stops in the drive. ( )

Wry, hilarious, wrenching, scary. ( )