Tell Me How It Ends

Review

By Ian Cruz

Tell Me How It Ends by Valeria Luiselli gives the reader a look into how children are put through a painstaking process so that they could be able to stay within the United States. However, it is not like a normal book where the author just describes the process, Luiselli takes the readers to this place that hardly seems like a room in a building in New York, but rather a torture chamber somewhere where no one would be able to find them. The children are asked a series of questions regarding their arrival to the United States and what is most obvious is that the children that have arrived in an immigration court there in New York City have come for a better life. However, they are only given 21 days to try and find a lawyer that would take on their case and if their case is not deemed worthy then they would be deported. Luiselli provides an insight into what it really means to be a child migrant and how all of these children she has interviewed is someone who has come for a better life, but might not be able to stay because of how they did not answer the questions she asked "correctly" meaning that they were not answered in a way that could help them stay in the United States. Luiselli throughout the story does not provide the reader with only morose details, but provides hope for a future that these questions will not be necessary and that children that migrate will be able to stay no matter the story they give because of how America is the land of opportunity. Tell Me How It Ends leaves you wondering how all of the stories of the children interviewed ended and of what is to come next and makes you really want to say to her: "tell me how it ends".