Graciela Limons novel uses the Salvadorian Civil War as a backdrop to tell the story of a sacrifices, brutalities and deaths that occurred from 1979 to 1992. Readers follow the protagonist Luz Declano as she journeys from El Salvador to Mexico to Los Angeles and back home as she searches for her son Bernabe. The entire novel though does not center around Luz journey for Limons also tells the story of Luz sons but does it in a way to show the relating pain they seem to share and bear in the absence of each other.

Much of the novels attention, though not prominent at first glance, focuses on the laments of Chileans mothers as they watch their children die in their arms in addition (but more so towards the end of the novel) to the contradictory intents of the church, or certain members of it, whom have a great deal of power in their hands. Limon also forces us readers to look and analyze the ways in which not only the soldiers of the wars are affected but also the ways in which the armed guerrilla forces, who are often perceived as the fighting people/ underdogs, are not much different from the uniformed soldiers in their methods of brutality and torture. This book is an easy, and although it doesnt provide a happy ending at all I found it to more enjoyable in being so realistic.