How long does it take to read The Book of Unknown Americans?
Cristina Henríquez
The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henríquez takes about 5 hours 25 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 5 hours 25 minutes
A weekend read
First published 2014. 295 pages, about 81,125 words. Written for young adults.
11 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 9 hours 1 minute |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 5 hours 25 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 3 hours 23 minutes |
The page count is the median across 9 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
After their daughter Maribel suffers a near-fatal accident, the Riveras leave Mexico and come to America. But upon settling at Redwood Apartments, a two-story cinderblock complex just off a highway in Delaware, they discover that Maribel's recovery-the piece of the American Dream on which they've pinned all their hopes-will not be easy. Every task seems to confront them with language, racial, and cultural obstacles. At Redwood also lives Mayor Toro, a high school sophomore whose family arrived from Panama fifteen years ago. Mayor sees in Maribel something others do not: that beyond her lovely face, and beneath the damage she's sustained, is a gentle, funny, and wise spirit. But as the two grow closer, violence casts a shadow over all their futures in America.
Subjects: Immigrants, Teenagers, Fiction, Delaware, fiction, Fiction, romance, contemporary, Hispanic americans, fiction
