This book was really interesting and I liked learning about the Mexican Revolution, from the perspective of regular people, who form a rebel group. I haven’t read many books on revolutions but the ones I have always have reckless, strongly political people who purposefully form a group to fight the revolution. So it was refreshing to read about a group of commoners, with different backgrounds, who stumbled upon each other and formed an unlikely group.

I liked how the author mixed a bunch of different characters together, who were going against the government. For example, we had Demetrio who was forced into leaving his family behind and forming this group, and then we had Luis who chose to join the group. The different character personalities really stood out to me and gave an interesting perspective on the revolution. It added a bit more realism to it because the people fighting against the revolution weren’t anything “special”, but were instead ordinary people who had been forced into it or inspired to fight against it. Demetrio as a character really stood out to me because he seemed so dis-interested to be part of the revolution but at the same time he was a good, strong leader. However, as the story progressed he became interested in the revolution and his role as a leader but kind of failed to stay as a good leader (at least in my opinion because he could barely control his men). It was interesting to see just how much being a part of the revolution changed Demetrio…for the worse.

One of the other things that stood out to me was how from the start, all the characters had a reason, a purpose, for taking part in the revolution. But as the story progresses the reasons become less known and it gets harder to tell what the characters are fighting for. At the start the rebel group was only attacking government men but as the story went on they became violent towards others and began wreaking havoc on innocent people. The government was the one being feared at the start of the novel, but at the end it seemed it was Demetrio and his men. It was a such a big contrast from the type of people they started off as and what kind of people they ended up becoming. It was like the characters no longer knew their purpose for going against the Federales, but instead knew they had to keep fighting.

Question to think about: The story started off with Demetrio being forced to leave his family, while at the end of the novel he chooses to leave his family behind. What do you think the author was trying to represent with Demetrio’s choices at the start and end of the novel?