It’s 2038, and the industrial South Texas town of Three Rivers is a dystopian wasteland. The mayor, who also controls the Big Tex Fish Cannery rules with an iron fist: outlawing reading and forcing the town’s mothers into indentured servitude at the cannery.
In the middle of this, Prosperina and Neftalí try to scrape out an existence: hiding from gangs and police alike.
I’m not going to lie, this was a depressing book to get through. That’s not a negative thing, though. The world building and character development are top notch. You can feel the despair, and the glimmers of hope as our story builds and the various situations, both good and bad, unfold.
What hits so hard about Brother Brontë is plausible the reality could be: especially for that area of Texas.
This is a novel that makes you think a lot, and shows a human condition where despair and fear drive certain people, while others grasp at fragments of power regardless of consequence or previous relationships. Where abuse of power has a severe impact on a community dynamic and not giving up hope isn’t always always the path to success and/or freedom.
For me, the greatest message was the power of community, and how people who have absolutely nothing band together to help each other scrape out any existence they can.