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Immigration is a hot topic right now, specifically Mexican immigration. I live in Texas, so it should be a topic in which I’ve taken an interest or about which I have a strong opinion, but I really don’t.

I know Mexican Americans. Some work for me, some are my friends, some are neighbors, and some are my children’s classmates. Are they documented? “Legal”? I assume so, but I don’t really know or care.

I’ve always enjoyed a good immigrant story — the idea of pursuing a dream or bravely escaping tyranny or starting over — like those told in novel from by Nadia Hashimi or Khaled Hosseini or Jhumpa Lahiri. These are about families or adults who begin again in a new country. I haven’t really given the children much thought, as far as it possibility being a hardship for them.

But Julissa Arce shared her perspective, and it made me think. She was brought to live with her parents who had been working in the U.S. (legally), and stayed. Her Visa expired, and all of sudden she was illegal. In reading her story, I began to understand and think differently about the situation.

Julissa was a good student. She helped her family in their sales business on weekends, and juggled school work, and friends and stayed on top. When the opportunity came for her to attend college, she could not make it happen. She couldn’t afford to pay the tuition, and without a social security number, she couldn’t apply for aid, and many of the colleges did not even consider her application.

I’ve heard of the DREAM act, which offers the opportunity of college to children who have been attending school here in the U.S., regardless of legal status. I’ve also heard the debate or criticism of the policy of allowing “illegals” to enroll in our public schools.

This was a highly readable memoir, covering much more than her struggles with her legal status. She shares about many interesting facets of her life including the ups and downs of dating in one’s 20s, the high pressure environment of Wall Street brokerage firms, succeeding as a woman and a minority, dealing with unexplained health programs, alcohol abuse and exploring the role of faith in all of it.

Most importantly, I learned how difficult it was for her to the things we all take for granted — live, work, attend college, have authentic relationships. I enjoyed this book a lot and am so glad I read it.

You know how when you read a review and the writer tells you to go right now and get this book and you roll your eyes because she doesn’t know your life and maybe you wouldn’t really like it? This isn’t like that at all. Go now and get this book! And I don’t even care if you like it or not–it’s a book that you should read.

When the Moon Is Low follows the story of Fereiba and her family. Fereiba’s mother died when she was born and she has always missed her; her father’s second wife provided him with several more children, all of whom stole her love and attention so that little was left for Fereiba. She was initially denied an education, but when she at last persuaded her parents to send her to school, she worked hard and caught up quickly with her classmates. Finally, her initial offer of marriage is given instead to her sister, but Fereiba ends up married to a man whom she deeply loves and respects.

Into her life which is at last filled with contentment and purpose come the Taliban, and she and her husband, an engineer, watch in dismay as their city is turned into a place of bombings, mistrust, and oppression. When they are specifically targeted, they know they have to leave and make plans to join Fereiba’s sister in London. Fereiba ends up beginning the long and dangerous journey across the world with her three children, one of whom is only a few months old. Her nightmare comes true when she and her teenage son, Saleem, are separated in Athens, and must begin to find their own ways across the continent of Europe.

The topic of migrants is very much in the news these days. Stories of people drowning in the Mediterranean, trying to get through the tunnel in Calais, leaping barriers from Morocco to the Spanish-owned town of Ceuta, being turned away from country after country. Desperate people taking desperate measures just hoping to survive. It’s easy to assume they are somehow to blame for their woes (after all, if they’d just had the good sense that we had, to be born in the West) or that their plight is someone else’s responsibility. But Fereiba and her family put a very human face on this situation. It’s heart-breaking to watch Saleem, so young and trying so hard to be responsible for his mother and younger siblings, working fourteen backbreaking hours picking tomatoes for whatever small wages the farmer deigns to give him. It’s terrifying when he’s separated from them and deported back several stages of their journey. Fereiba’s fear and the complete vulnerability of the small family left me on the edge of my seat.

This is not a book about victims, although things happen that will make you furious, or perhaps cry. (Or both.) This is a book about people taking what circumstances they are in and doing what it takes to survive, hoping and praying that they will at last be able to thrive.

Author Nadia Hashimi has a knack for creating believable characters who are strong even in adversity and who are immensely likeable as well. Although this is a timely novel, When the Moon is Low is not a diatribe on immigration or a treatise on how to handle refugees. Instead, it’s a story of a family, a woman and her son, who experience hard times but who also know love, and joy, and who long for peace–rather like all of us. I can’t recommend this book highly enough. I want you to read it.