The story is told from multiple first-person points of view, with the two main narrators being Alma Rivera, a roughly 30-year-old housewife from Pátzcuaro, Mexico, and Mayor Toro, a teenage social outcast and first-generation Hispanic and Latino American whose parents were originally from Panama.

[2] Alma and Arturo Rivera leave their comfortable surroundings in Pátzcuaro, Mexico when their daughter Maribel suffers a severe head injury.

Their journey into the United States leads them to Newark, Delaware, a town with a school for the intellectually disabled known as Evers.

Alma and Arturo hope that enrolling Maribel in Evers will help her recover from her severe brain damage.

However, the family's life beyond his job remains uncertain; they do not have a stable home environment, Alma does not work, and Maribel has not been officially admitted to Evers.

The Toro family have two sons, Enrique and Mayor, and they live in the same low-income apartment complex as the Riveras.

Alma is traumatized by the assault, and she is deeply concerned Arturo will blame her for not keeping Maribel safe.

Meanwhile, Quisqueya Solis, a prying neighbor who has also been the victim of assault, tells Alma that Mayor and Maribel were alone together kissing in a car.

As a final gesture of friendship, Celia and her other neighbors donate money that Alma needs to transport Arturo's body back to Mexico.

He moves to the United States primarily so that Maribel can attend the Evers School in Delaware.

Her accident has left with her with brain damage, which includes an inability to speak fluidly and fluently in any language.

He is a young teenage boy, the son of Panamanian immigrants Cecilia and Rafael, and he is in love with Maribel Rivera.

He finds a kinship with her in their shared experience as poor first-generation immigrants trying to assimilate in American culture.

She is acutely aware of her family's dire financial situation, and she offers to help by finding employment.

Benny Quinto - A young man who leaves the priesthood to eventually make money through undesirable means.

Nelia Zafon - A former dancer of Puerto Rican decent who currently owns the local theater in town.

In the Los Angeles Review of Books, Daniel Olivas said the book "is as disturbing as it is beautiful, a testament to the mixed blessings our country offers immigrants, who struggle against bigotry and economic hardship while maintaining just enough hope to keep striving for something better...a narrative mosaic that moves toward a heartrending conclusion.

"[1] In The Guardian, Sandra Newman felt the "strength of the book is in the quiet details", but criticized Henríquez for spending "too much time on the periphery of her story, making points that feel at once too vague and too obvious.

"[4] Reviewing the novel in The New York Times, Ana Castillo found the novel "unfailingly well written and entertaining, [but] more often than not the first-person accounts don't seem quite authentic.