House Divided (Class H Trilogy, 2) - Softcover

Ramos Y Sanchez, Raul

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0446507768 ISBN 13: 9780446507769

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing, 2011

Synopsis

Once they had a country, a culture, a future. Today, upheaval and betrayal have turned their world upside down. And for one family-a U.S. war hero, his deeply religious wife, and their impressionable fourteen-year-old son-a new struggle has just begun.

Mano Suarez made a choice to fight against injustice, and his wife can only pray for his deliverance. Now their son, Pedro, takes up his father's cause . . . disappearing into the ranks of a cult-like organization and leaving his family far behind. To rescue him, Mano must face the consequences of his past deeds. But how can he convince his son to give up the very ideals he, Mano, embraced? How can he prove that home and family are the most important ideals of all?

House Divided

About this title

About the Author

Cuban-born Raul Ramos y Sanchez grew up in Miami's cultural kaleidoscope before becoming a long-time resident of the U.S. Midwest. Ramos began the Class H Trilogy in 2004 with the input of scholars from Latin America, Spain, and the United States. A multiple award winner, the author and his work have been featured on television, radio and print media across the U.S. and abroad. 

Reviews

American Libre author Ramos y Sanchez offers myriad perspectives on a civil war in his slushy latest. War has ravaged a Los Angeles where people who are designated "class H"--Hispanic, married to someone Hispanic, or having at least one grandparent of Hispanic origin--are carted off to quarantine zones. As a violent uprising stirs, Manolo Suarez, who has already lost a son to the war, fears for his other son, 13-year-old Pedro, who falls under the spell of a charismatic gang leader. As Manolo fights to keep his family safe, a slew of story lines sprout: two U.N. delegates of Hispanic origin with opposing views on how best to support their people, an ambitious C.I.A. operative, a young officer hell-bent on proving himself to his superiors. Unfortunately, Ramos y Sanchez neglects his characters' psychological and emotional development and instead leans heavily on potboiler plot twists and dialogue that too often slumps into action-movie banter. The novel is unfailingly earnest and moves confidently enough, but the treatment of conflict and its aftereffects is too shallow to resonate. (Jan.) (c)
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In the near future, Manolo Suarez is one of the leaders of the Hispanic rebel movement in America, fighting for the freedom of Hispanic Americans, who have been relegated to quarantine zones in the Southwest. The movement has delegates at the UN fighting for a new Hispanic nation to be separated from the U.S. Escalating violence from the quarantine zones has led to their military surveillance, and many members of the Hispanic population begin to favor gang-led violence and guerrilla warfare against non-Hispanic civilians. Manolo’s son, Pedro, is persuaded to join one of these violent gangs, but his determination wavers when he is forced to kidnap Sarah, daughter of Hank Evans, a high-ranking CIA official. Sarah’s and Pedro’s lives both hang in the balance in this brutal and segmented story that extrapolates the current racial tension in the U.S. to a place in which Hispanics no longer have citizenship or contact with non-Hispanic Americans. Though the cast of this novel is so large that individual characterization sometimes becomes lost, overall it uses a suspenseful plot to tell an important story. --Julie Hunt

Edition details

• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0446507768
• ISBN 13: 9780446507769
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 320