Mateo is a young man who was raised in America and discovers only when his family is being deported that he is in fact undocumented. After returning to Mexico, Mateo is determined to get back to his friends and his normal life in Arizona, and so decides to cross the border. But the desert is more dangerous than Mateo realizes, and before long he knows that to make it home he'll need to seek help from unexpected sources if he's going to get back alive.

This was such an unexpected way to share the story, one that weaves in the history of border crossings, deportation, and migrant workers with paranormal elements (ghosts! Mystical magical jaguars!) and a very moving connection between the living and the dead. Mateo also encounters Native communities who live in the borderlands, vigilante groups terrorizing migrants and asylum seekers, and the vicious, painful reality that he is just a kid who needs help.