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The Earthquake Machine
The Earthquake Machine | Mary Pauline Lowry
5 posts | 4 read | 9 to read
The Earthquake Machine tells the story of 14 year-old Rhonda. On the outside, everything looks perfect in Rhonda's world but at home Rhonda has to deal with a manipulative father who keeps her mentally ill mother hooked on pharmaceuticals. The only reliable person in Rhonda's life is her family's Mexican yardman, Jesus. But when the INS deports Jesus back to his home state of Oaxaca, Rhonda is left alone with her increasingly painful family situation. Determined to find her friend Jesus, Rhonda seizes an opportunity to run away during a camping trip with friends. She swims to the Mexican side of the Rio Grande and makes her way to the border town of Boquillas, Mexico. There a peyote-addled bartender convinces her she won't be safe traveling alone into the country's interior. So with the bartender's help, Rhonda cuts her hair and assumes the identity of a Mexican boy named Angel. She then sets off on a burro across the desert to look for Jesus. Thus begins a wild adventure that explores the borders between the United States and Mexico, adolescence and adulthood, male and female, English and Spanish, and adult coming-of-age and Young Adult novels."
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review
Bertha_Mason
The Earthquake Machine | Mary Pauline Lowry
Bailedbailed

Racist crap.

Quasifesto 👏 6y
4 likes1 comment
blurb
Reggie
The Earthquake Machine | Mary Pauline Lowry
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#fiercefeb I think 14 y.o. Rhonda is a #rebelgirl for not accepting the cards dealt to her which include a pharmacist father who convinces her mother to kill herself, but instead deals her own hand by faking her own death and running away to Mexico in search of her recently deported gardener, Jesus, her only friend. In Mexico she will cut her hair, pass as a guy, and find her own way in this world. This book was quite the coming of age tale.

Cathythoughts What a story !! 👍🏻👍🏻great choice 6y
Reggie @Cathythoughts Thanks!!! 6y
TrishB Sounds cool 👍🏻 6y
See All 9 Comments
Reggie @TrishB it is. It is quite a journey of self-discovery. 6y
batsy Gosh, that certainly sounds like quite a moving story. Lovely choice, I hadn't heard of this. 6y
Reggie @batsy check it out. There is a lot pieced together beautifully. 6y
Cinfhen I LOVE your book choices and blurbs❤️sounds like a real page turner 6y
LauraBeth Well now I want to read this... 6y
Reggie @Cinfhen Thanks!!! @LauraBeth please do. One of the blurbs says it‘s the book mothers wished their daughters read without them knowing. 6y
55 likes5 stack adds9 comments
review
Reggie
The Earthquake Machine | Mary Pauline Lowry
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Pickpick

Rhonda is 14, has an absent pharmacist father who shows up to keep her mother zombified on meds until the day he convinces her to kill herself. Wanting to find her only friend, Rhonda runs away to Mexico to find her recently deported gardener, Jesus. Once in Mexico she cuts her hair and passes herself as a young man finding it easier to navigate Mexico and the world as a man. What happens is one of the rawest coming of age tales I've ever read.

Cinfhen Whoa! Is it disturbing or just very raw? Sounds like a difficult but good read! 7y
Reggie @Cinfhen Raw, as in she leaves no details out as to what this girl discovering herself in this world is thinking. It is as if the spirit of feminism took me into the room of requirement, beat the crap outta me, nursed me back to health and left me with a feeling of gratitude and enlightenment. This book's VERY worth the read. 7y
Cinfhen You convinced me, so far every book you loved has held tons of merit🙌🏻 7y
13 likes2 stack adds3 comments
blurb
Reggie
The Earthquake Machine | Mary Pauline Lowry
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I'm not religious at all but I do need to ask this book forgiveness for my reactionary #threwitaccrosstheroom post last night, and forgetting what it's like to be 13. To have so many emotions going on inside it can be confusing which are which. This book turned into a pick today and during work just kept my mind occupied while I anxiously waited for my breaks to continue reading.

blurb
Reggie
The Earthquake Machine | Mary Pauline Lowry
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am i still reading this book? I feel like I'm not progressive enough for this book. It could also be the extended moth metaphor in which unwelcome/welcomed? molestation may or may not have taken place?
Or the in depth look at a girl who is just experiencing puberty and maybe thats it. If there was a book about the anti-romanticizing of a girl becoming a woman and how betrayed and caged by her body she felt, this book would be it. I cant even ...

Reggie I understand its not all a Summer's Eve commercial but ....... if Jesus (her deported gardener and only friend) is not found in Mexico, I will be pissed!!!!! 7y
14 likes1 comment