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A review by saralynnburnett
One Year of Ugly by Caroline Mackenzie
5.0
What a knockout One Year of Ugly by Caroline Mackenzie is! I could not get enough of this book and the kaleidoscopic range of emotions it caused—what a rollercoaster ride! The last several chapters of this novel left me breathless. I sincerely hope there’s a sequel (please?) I want to spend more time with the Palacios family and especially the fiercely feminist Yola. At the heart of this story is family and this family was a memorable one. Their way of turning the worst situations into episodes that ultimately bring them closer together, despite the constant threat of deportation because of their unnerving status as refugees in Trinidad & Tobago was a powerful message. Love and laughter triumphs.
Aside from the lush island setting, an island I love dearly, the other thing I adored about this novel (I feel this way about all writer-protagonists) was the meta aspect. Yola is an aspiring writer and I AM HERE FOR THIS. The ups and down of literary magazine submissions, the toil of writing in general, the need for creative energy via living life, the fear of dying before you publish a novel (yes, this is one of my biggest fears I’m telling you it’s totally rational just google what happened to Stieg Larsson). It’s all here and it’s all wonderful.
Wrap that up in a lusty, eye-brow raising romance with a criminal and combine it with a positive strip club experience (I mean really, I am so tired of the sad stripper trope, these empowered women were superbly refreshing) and you have one wild ride that I couldn’t put down. I feel like the humor here is uniquely Trini / Caribbean in that basically if it can go wrong, it will, but it will probably leave you laughing once you stand back and look at the ridiculousness of it all, which the author cleverly points out with the line, “life was composed of the random and the absurd.”
Highly recommend. Also, I won’t be eating mangos again for some time…
Aside from the lush island setting, an island I love dearly, the other thing I adored about this novel (I feel this way about all writer-protagonists) was the meta aspect. Yola is an aspiring writer and I AM HERE FOR THIS. The ups and down of literary magazine submissions, the toil of writing in general, the need for creative energy via living life, the fear of dying before you publish a novel (yes, this is one of my biggest fears I’m telling you it’s totally rational just google what happened to Stieg Larsson). It’s all here and it’s all wonderful.
Wrap that up in a lusty, eye-brow raising romance with a criminal and combine it with a positive strip club experience (I mean really, I am so tired of the sad stripper trope, these empowered women were superbly refreshing) and you have one wild ride that I couldn’t put down. I feel like the humor here is uniquely Trini / Caribbean in that basically if it can go wrong, it will, but it will probably leave you laughing once you stand back and look at the ridiculousness of it all, which the author cleverly points out with the line, “life was composed of the random and the absurd.”
Highly recommend. Also, I won’t be eating mangos again for some time…