Spirit Run: A 6,000-Mile Marathon Through North America's Stolen Land

I read the entire thing over one weekend. Maybe the best book I've read this year - Noe is a sensitive and astute observer of his surroundings and the people around him. His excellent command of the words weaves intimate stories of struggle and perseverance.
The Run itself reminded me a bit of Stephen King's "The Long Walk" at times, but it was the other stories and characters that really won me over.

I was expecting more adventure, more of a spiritual running experience. Instead, there seemed to be too much division, fighting and disunity among the runners. I was disappointed and disheartened to hear they treated each other that way. Spirit Run? Not much spirit.

This book was a quick and great read. As a runner I appreciated the spiritual aspect of running. I always say running is my religion and the road is my church

Wonderfully written! I felt like I was there through the miles of running, which were beautifully interwoven with powerful stories

This was a hard book for me to read. The pain of the land and the people is visceral in the authors words. How can I fix these things? I cannot, that is the meaning for me. Then how do live with this knowledge. The world has and is breaking many, give honor to their suffering. The earth loves me as one of its own, and will grieve when I'm gone .

This memoir is about the authors life, and also what it is like being the son of working class Mexican immigrants, in a town in Washington state, and of his search to find out who he really is and what he stands for in this world.
His parents have had a hard life in the orchards and apple packing plants, that took everything out of them. I think a bit differently now when I bite into an apple that was so easy to acquire, knowing what it is like for the many workers in those packing plants. The author worked beside his mother at the plant while in high school and would always run to rid himself of the stress and frustration of his situation.
After high school Noe was lucky to have gotten a full scholarship to a university, and was excited about the prospect of getting an education and being able to help people in similar situations as his parents. Once at the school he just couldn't settle his mind and then one day, he heard a talk by an organizer of a Native American/First Nations movement called the Peace and Dignity Journeys, a race that starts in Alaska through the Americas, to Panama. A journey of Native runners who want to connect with the earth, their spirituality and to find out about other Native Americans beliefs along the journey.
As the run starts and the runners head south, picking up runners in different locations, Noe encounters many different personalities, who have all had many hardships. Some with strong personalities, who did not always follow the rules or were not always as nice as they could have been to fellow runners, it was a hard run with many leg injuries along the way. The author made it to just over the Guatemalan Border, having run through Mexico, which had been his main goal, as he wanted to be able to connect to his parents native land.
He went back to education after leaving the race.
Beautifully written, he is a talented author.
I would like to thank NetGalley and Catapult for allowing me to read this book.

I was instantly engrossed into the story. Mr. Alverez’s writing still flowed perfectly. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about indigenous peoples of North American/ Mexico.

The writing and storytelling are excellent.

I learned so many things I didn't know from this book.

I never knew what it took to get fruit from tree to table.

And what it's like for the people who make that happen.

This book is full of people and places that will make you see the world differently.

Alvarez has penned a powerful, scary, brutally honest, and extremely holy book. He paints such a wonderful and sad picture of growing up poor and undocumented in this country. His adventure of the run across North America is amazing and poignant. A tremendous effort, which will leave you breathless and better for having joined him on the adventure.

"College will protect me," thought the author as a teenager, as do so many of us first generation Americans who, like our parents, believe that an education is our salvation from the field, the factory, the back-breaking labor and abject poverty that dehumanizes and tears apart the family unit. But the long awaited arrival in those hallowed halls of that instrument of salvation that we think is college cruelly awakens the insecurities we've been internalizing for years: i am an outsider, an impostor, I don't belong, people like me can't get ahead, maybe we're destined to a life of poverty. The author is plagued by those destructive inner voices when he happens upon an opportunity to participate in an extreme run intended to unite Indigenous peoples and restore their pride and dignity. Alvarez signs up, in equal parts to physically run away from life of field labor and poverty and to forge his own identity as a Mexican, an American, a son, a man. Instead of falling prey to the romanticization of Indigenous peoples as spiritually superior beings, holding hands and frolicking along this journey in bliss, Alvarez honestly depicts human shortcomings. The runners do not all become instant friends. There is petty bickering, threats of violence, exclusion and bullying, jealousy and mistrust, denial of food. There is also beauty in their shares imperfection and desire to get back something lost or stolen.
In the end, the run, the college experience, and career choice don't go quite as planned, but offer the reader a viable alternative to the typical immigrant success story. Alvarez (and his mother) shows us that success need not look a certain way. And even when we've succeeded, those inferiority complexes can continue to lurk in the deepest recesses of our mind.

My favorite part of the book was the beginning, i.e., the revelation of the reality of the fruit orchards and packing plants. I learned so many things I hadn't stopped to consider before about the lives of migrant works and impoverished laborers. It was eye opening and heartbreaking, but sadly, not surprising (after all, Karl Marx prettyich predicted this a long time ago...). I was also deeply moved by the story of Alvarez's father's childhood as an orphan living off whatever turtle eggs and crabs he could find. How much suffering there is in the world, and how fortunate we all are to have as much as we have!!