Review: The Daughters of Juarez

The Daughters of Juarez
by Teresa Rodriguez

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Daughters of Juarez / 978-0-7432-9203-0

"The Daughters of Juarez" is a heart-breaking and truly eye-opening expose of literally hundreds of serial murders of innocent girls and women, just south of the United States - Mexico border. As a reader, I was surprised and shocked to realize that I had heard little to nothing about these murders, despite their proximity to my home in the southwestern United States.

I highly recommend this book to all readers; though I do not know what we can do to help correct this horrible situation, I do believe that everyone should be made clearly aware of what these women are suffering. It is deeply frustrating to read Rodriguez's clear and concise condemnation of the corrupt Mexican police, ineffectual Mexican government, and indifferent United States law enforcement and to realize that all these factors are amounting to a real and horrific death toll on the women who live and work in the area.

If there is one flaw in this superb book, it is that the narrative becomes a little garbled in the last few chapters. The book would do well, I think, to have a 'cheat sheet' at the front, detailing the major players in the story and allowing the readers something to refer back to when the real life characters pop in and out of the narrative over the course of this decade-old debacle. However, this narrative flaw is slight in the face of the importance of the subject matter and the otherwise eloquent presentation of the material.

Everyone should read this book, and understand that violence against women threatens half of our population, daily. The lives of hundreds of women have been quietly lost, and this situation is not acceptable - the system *must* be improved to prevent this from happening ever again.

~ Ana Mardoll

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