Reviews with content warning for Dementia - Infinite Country

This book follows the members of one undocumented Colombian family, as they navigate the experience of family members deportation from the United States and the hardships they face while trying to reunite and build a better life for their whole family in the United States. The book describes each of the family members experiences in Colombia and/or the United States, as they go through life facing the challenges of living as a family separated between Colombia and America. Mauro and Talia, father and the youngest daughter, living in Colombia together. While Elena, Karina, and Nando live in America- waiting for their sister and husband to join them. It describes Mauro and Elena's love story and how they were able to move to Texas and all of the events leading up to Mauro's deportation and the decision to send Talia to Colombia with her father. Elena, Mauro, and Talia have to make difficult decisions to leave the country they have known and loved in order to seek new and safer oppurtunities in America and reunite as a family, all while risking deportation. Their journeys depict challenges of living undocumented including struggles to find affordable and safe housing, racism, sexual assault, and the daily fears of deportation.

I would definitely recommend this book. It opened my eyes to a lot of the challenges undocumented immigrants may go through. I listened to the audiobook and did not enjoy the narrator, so I'd recommend reading a print or ebook copy.

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julied's review against another edition

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informative sad fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
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

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jojo_'s review against another edition

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emotional fast-paced

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

4.0

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kayles514's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad tense slow-paced

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

4.5

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kclark's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional informative reflective medium-paced

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

3.5

This book explores the complexity of family relationships strained across time, distance, immigration status, and class. While Talia's journey from the correctional school back to Bogotá is used as the main plot of this book, the actual story of this book centers on her whole family and how they wound up split between two countries. We learn through non-sequentially how her parents met, started a family, and moved to the United States before the family was split up as a result of complex immigration status.

The way in which family saga is relayed is often a scene of Talia on her journey home, and then something triggers a memory of her family which then spins into a brief tangential story about a member of her family and often times will branch off a few more times into different vignettes which may last several chapters. This felt a bit messy while I was reading it, but by the time I reached the end of the novel and I reflected on the book as a whole, it worked for me.

The concept of Justice is central to this plot. Characters ability to react to unjust situations and dole out a version of justice is often restricted by their circumstances. We see how immigration status can disproportionately impact undocumented people and make them unable to access justice. We also see how one's personal justice and society's concept of what is just can often be at odds. Engel also explores how access to power skews the sense of justice.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. There were moments of beautiful prose that really struck me, but overall the book was not one of my favorites. In short, I liked it, but I did not love it.

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_kathill's review against another edition

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challenging emotional tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes

4.0

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