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This text is about migrants' passage through dangerous terrains such as the Sonora Desert in Mexico, which is used as a tool of border enforcement in and of itself. After the Mexican law enforcement cracked down and implemented deterrence practices, migrants have had to find new routes into the US, which have also been a lot more dangerous and life threatening. The book also succeeds in showing how structural violence is inflicted on migrants by these policies. 

The methodological design consists of 45 interviews of men that have made it across the borders and those who have made failed attempts, and the families of those who have lost members due to harsh ecological conditions of the Sonora Desert. The interviews take place along the transit route, not so much at shelters, but along the routes, close to the US-Mexico border, and in the US. The data is used to shed light on the human experience of migration rather than the politicized nature of it. 

The cover of the book seems to represent a graveyard of items left behind during migration. I notice backpacks, hats, articles of clothing, and other items that are indescernible. The title and the cover go hand in hand to tell a narrative of the graveyard; things left behind to die. It almost makes one think of the Sonora Desert as a place where one can lose anything and everything, hence the huge pile of rubbish and items left behind. 

The text's interviews with family members who have lost a loved one in the desert are the most interesting and powerful thing about this text and of the ethnography as a whole. To be able to understand the extent of the structural violence, one must hear from those who have lost their lives as a result of the policies, the structure of the system and the transit route as an experience. 

This sketch relays this ethnography beyond the monograph by tying in the overall effect of the ethnographies with the theories and social science behind the phenomenon to help readers see this more than just through a personal lens, but from a socio-political lens, from a necropolitics lens and from a humanistic lens. 

I would propose to the author to focus on more than just the Sonoran desert, but other avenues of the transit route that have been taken up as a result of the 1993 policy reforms. By expanding this ethnography to be a comparative case study, I believe that one could show the even greater impact of structural violence inflicted upon migrants than by focusing on just one locality or monograph. 

This book starts by painting a picture of the invisible structures, such as the desert, that are used to deter migrants, giving a bird's-eye view at the systems in place. The structure of this book is then divided into three stages. The first phase is separation, in which migrants are subjected many forms of violence. The second phase is the liminal stage. This transitional period presents us with more stories about the crossing and the risks involved, and the motives driving the migrants to undertake this dangerous journey. The last stage presents us with the aftermath.