REVIEW: Infinite Country (Patricia Engel)

Book: Infinite Country

Author: Patricia Engel

My rating: 3.5/5

Premise: Talia is being held at a correctional facility in the forested mountains of Colombia after committing an impulsive act of violence. She needs to get back home to Bogota, where her father and a plane ticket to the United States are waiting for her. If she misses her flight, she misses her chance to be reunited with her family in the north. Will Talia make it to Bogota in time? And if she does, can she bring herself to trade the solid facts of her father and life in Colombia for the distant vision of her mother and siblings in America?

⚠️[CW: rape]

This book explores life in Colombia during civil war and life as undocumented migrant in the US. It also nicely weaves in some Andean mythology and stories, which I loved.

In the present, Talia is trying to get home so she can join her family in America. All the while, she's questioning whether she's making the right decision to leave the country she knows for one she doesn't. In between this storyline, we follow her parents' lives as they meet, the struggles they face, their reasons for migrating and the living with the constant threat of deportation. There's also a few chapters from Talia's siblings, covering the prejudices they face as children of migrants.

This book clearly shows the hard decisions migrants make when fleeing conflicts in search for a better life for their children. We see various characters having decide between home and a new life. There's impossible situations as well, especially when the children have citizenship but the parents don't. This is the sort of book that makes me wish there was more humanity in this world.