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4.13 AVERAGE
4.13 AVERAGE
Diane shares her life in a funny, heartfelt memoir with great pop culture references and calls to action for immigration reform. Worthwhile read.
For a good cry, listen to Diane Guerrero's heart-wrenching performance of the audiobook version of her memoir about fending for herself after the deportation of her parents. Whew.
Guerrero plays fun, fearless characters on two of my favorite shows, so I was surprised and intrigued by her tragic backstory. Wherever you stand on the immigration debate — and trust me, my feelings even as a child of immigrants are mixed — you'll feel for the plight of a young girl who fell through the cracks of the broken system. Guerrero lost her family in an instant, and she was left to figure out her next moves on her own. Child services didn't come knocking. No foster home was arranged for her. She was simply left behind.
In an approachable narrative that at times sounds like a conversation you'd have while kicking it with your homegirl, Guerrero interweaves tales of her childhood both with and without her parents, her difficulties processing her life with them away in Colombia and her struggles to stand on her own two feet.
There were so many moments in this book that made me angry and upset. I was appalled to hear about how, after her parents were arrested, neighbors walked right into Guerrero's home and raided the fridge, telling her they wouldn't be needing that food anymore. I was deeply saddened by her raw honesty about her experiences with self-injury and alcohol abuse and her near suicide attempt. I was tickled by hearing about her audition for Maritza on OITNB knowing that it all worked out despite the agonizingly long wait for a callback. And when she met the president and he told her how much he loved her on the show? I was dead.
If you are currently in the process of trying to move to Canada, you have probably learned that immigration laws are tough. Guerrero details all the attempts her family made to become legal residents, the scams they were victimized by. She saves the bulk of any facts and figures for the final chapter, where she brings light to the exploitation undocumented immigrants are subjected to in backbreaking jobs and masterfully takes down the idea of building The Wall (most immigrants fly here and overstay their visas, like her parents did).
Guerrero's honesty is refreshing and illuminating. She doesn't hold back from revealing her bitterness toward her parents. She wasn't a model daughter, and for years avoided speaking to her parents as much as possible despite her love for them. I related to her financial struggles through college and the way she grappled with trying to be a "good girl" as her world fell apart.
Warm, funny yet rooted in gravitas, In the Country We Love is an enlightening, personal read that puts a face on one of the most pressing issues of American society. Let it challenge and open you.
(This review originally appeared on Girl Friday Lit.)
Guerrero plays fun, fearless characters on two of my favorite shows, so I was surprised and intrigued by her tragic backstory. Wherever you stand on the immigration debate — and trust me, my feelings even as a child of immigrants are mixed — you'll feel for the plight of a young girl who fell through the cracks of the broken system. Guerrero lost her family in an instant, and she was left to figure out her next moves on her own. Child services didn't come knocking. No foster home was arranged for her. She was simply left behind.
In an approachable narrative that at times sounds like a conversation you'd have while kicking it with your homegirl, Guerrero interweaves tales of her childhood both with and without her parents, her difficulties processing her life with them away in Colombia and her struggles to stand on her own two feet.
There were so many moments in this book that made me angry and upset. I was appalled to hear about how, after her parents were arrested, neighbors walked right into Guerrero's home and raided the fridge, telling her they wouldn't be needing that food anymore. I was deeply saddened by her raw honesty about her experiences with self-injury and alcohol abuse and her near suicide attempt. I was tickled by hearing about her audition for Maritza on OITNB knowing that it all worked out despite the agonizingly long wait for a callback. And when she met the president and he told her how much he loved her on the show? I was dead.
If you are currently in the process of trying to move to Canada, you have probably learned that immigration laws are tough. Guerrero details all the attempts her family made to become legal residents, the scams they were victimized by. She saves the bulk of any facts and figures for the final chapter, where she brings light to the exploitation undocumented immigrants are subjected to in backbreaking jobs and masterfully takes down the idea of building The Wall (most immigrants fly here and overstay their visas, like her parents did).
Guerrero's honesty is refreshing and illuminating. She doesn't hold back from revealing her bitterness toward her parents. She wasn't a model daughter, and for years avoided speaking to her parents as much as possible despite her love for them. I related to her financial struggles through college and the way she grappled with trying to be a "good girl" as her world fell apart.
Warm, funny yet rooted in gravitas, In the Country We Love is an enlightening, personal read that puts a face on one of the most pressing issues of American society. Let it challenge and open you.
(This review originally appeared on Girl Friday Lit.)
This is a gut wrenching story of how the daughter of undocumented immigrants is left to fend on her own when at 14 years old her parents are deported. Her whole world is turned upside down and now she must figure out how to live. In the end, Diane turns to acting as a way to focus on a positive and shenis successful. We've seen her in OITNB and Jane the Virgin. I really appreciated this story. I cried as her life evolved and hit after hit came. This is a story of survival.
emotional
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
It’s a slow start, I don’t like how it jumps back and forth between different events and periods in her life. However, it soon steadies itself into a decent chronological order and tells and extremely interesting and harrowing account of life as a first generation American to undocumented parents.
From Diane Guererro comes a memoir everyone should read. In it, she discusses her melancholy adolescence when her loving parents and brother were taken away from her by immigration while she was at school one day. It also speaks to the strong woman she became because of it. Best known for her role as Maritza Ramos in the Netflix series Orange is the New Black, Guererro shines in this debut memoir. Latinos and non-Latinos alike will appreciate the honesty and poignancy that this book brings, especially shedding light on the system that fails immigrants and their children on a daily basis.
In The Country We Love: My Family Divided is a 2017 Alex Award winner.
In The Country We Love: My Family Divided is a 2017 Alex Award winner.
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
fast-paced
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Suicidal thoughts, Deportation
I really enjoyed this one! However, I'm not really sure what to rate it. Memoirs aren't something I typically read and so while this book was enjoyable, I didn't know how to feel about it. For most of the book (mostly the first half where she was discussing deportation), I was loving this! That being said, I wasn't that invested in the sections where she talked about acting. I haven't been interested in her career and only picked up her book because it dealt with the topic of deportation; in fact, I didn't even know she acted in Jane the Virgin and Orange before I picked this up! I've decided to give it four stars for now but may change my mind later.
“There is no point going through anything difficult if, on the other side of it, very little shifts”
Great read!
Great read!
The first half of this was reeeeeaaaaalllllyyyyyy good. The last quarter kind of dropped off for me, because she started talking about 'Orange is the New Black' and her friends on the cast and crew, and since I don't like or watch the show (I know Diane from 'Jane the Virgin'), I wasn't really that interested. The prose also got a little scattered around this point. Otherwise, a solid and important read that really educated me on US immigration policies and the trauma that deportation leaves behind.
A moving and motivating story of how a young girl survived the deportation of her parents at 14 and went on to achieve her dream of being an actress on Orange Is the New Black and Jane the Virgin.