Reviews with content warning for Suicidal thoughts - Infinite Country

I…wow…I have no words for Infinite Country. This short, yet beautiful tale tells the story of a family split between the United States and Colombia. We learn about each member of the family and what it means to be a citizen of a country. Engel’s exquisitely-written story gives readers a perspective on immigration and what makes a person a citizen of a country. Infinite country held my attention for an entire weekend and is a book I recommend picking up if you haven’t already had the chance to.

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birdbrainbooks's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Well I did not expect to cry my way through the entire last quarter of this book! What a powerful story. The first pages hooked me immediately; after that, the meandering nature of switching narrators and timeframes started to frustrate me a bit; and then it all just suddenly gelled and really packed an emotional punch. I fell in love with our protagonist Talia from page one, and later on with both of her parents as well (what a beautifully imperfect love story). Some elements of hard choices and family separations hit sensitive personal notes. Highly recommend.

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womanwill's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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bookishandlegal's review against another edition

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challenging emotional inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I’m really conflicted about this book. On the one hand I’m really glad that it exists and that so many people are reading it. It’s an important story and I’m glad that it was written and that people are being exposed to it. For the most part the book is well written and an interesting story that kept me engaged throughout—sometimes I found that the story dragged and was really slow, even though it’s short (but I could have been in the wrong headspace when reading it).

On the other hand I didn’t love this book. I liked it—but didn’t love it. I didn’t like the way third person was used in this book, it just didn’t work for me. I also found the way the third person jumped between the characters being focused on and the jump between time periods to be confusing and made it hard for me to engage with the story. I never felt super connected to any of the characters and I never felt like I got enough insight or development from any of the characters, which was a bummer. I think the shortness of this book lead to the lack of character development and deep insight into the characters that I wanted—if the book had been longer there would have been more time to delve into the characters lives. There were also several chapters towards the end that abruptly switched to first person and I had no idea who was talking for a bit and I found that jarring and slightly confusing.

Overall, this is a well written fictional story about an immigration experience to the US. This is not my favorite immigration based story but it wasn’t bad and I would definitely recommend it to others to read to get more insight into some immigration experiences.

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kylieqrada's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I don't feel qualified to review this book, but I will give it my best shot. I read this in one sitting. It was not an easy read, but it was a beautifully written and a necessary one. It is a very character-driven look at the immigrant experience, through the lens of one Colombian family. We get multiple points of view, mostly from Talia, the family's youngest daughter, but also from Mauro, the father, Elena, the mother, and Karina and Nando, the other two siblings. Mauro and Talia are together in Columbia, and Elena, Karina, and Nando are together in the U.S. The different POVs allow us to explore the immigration experience from multiple angles, and to understand that "the immigrant" is not a monolith. Particularly, the "undocumented immigrant" is not a monolith. Characters in the book are U.S. citizens, undocumented immigrants, Colombian citizens, and dual citizens. I can't necessarily say that I enjoyed the reading experience of this book, but I did learn a lot, and I think that Patricia Engel is a stunningly gorgeous writer. I docked half of a star for fatphobic content. This book contains a lot of potentially harmful content, so please check CWs before reading.

Content Warnings