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Infinite Country by Patricia Engel
“What was it about this country that kept everyone hostage to its fantasy?” Infinite Country shares much in common with two of other novels by Patricia Engel, The Veins of the Ocean and Vida. While I do enjoy certain aspects of her storytelling—which at times reminds me of authors such as Alice Hoffman and Isabel […]
MoreSea Monsters by Chloe Aridjis
In spite of its lively premise and its lovely cover art Sea Monsters is one of the most lacklustre books I’ve read this year. Thankfully, Sea Monsters is a slight novel, just around 200 pages. Then again, those 200 pages are a drag. The summary for this novel is somewhat misleading as it promises the […]
MoreMouthful of Birds by Samanta Schweblin
Like most collections of short stories Mouthful of Birds has some stories that are hits and ones that are misses. I think the collection definitely showcases Samanta Schweblin’s creativity and versatility. While most of the stories are permeated by the surreal they differ in tone and subject. Schweblin makes the familiar feel unfamiliar. Many of […]
MoreThe Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
As the title itself suggests this book is about undocumented Americans. Karla Cornejo Villavicencio never treats the people she is writing of as passive ‘subjects’, or worst still ‘objects’, her gaze is neither voyeuristic nor impersonal. She does not give the impression that she is filtering their experiences and stories, even if she admits early […]
MoreThings We Lost in the Fire by Mariana Enríquez
Well…that was disappointing. Given the hype around this collection and the comparisons to Shirley Jackson, I was prepared to read some truly unsettling tales. However, as with a lot of other contemporary authors of horror, Mariana Enríquez relies on body horror, gore, and animal violence to instil feelings of unease in her readers…and while her […]
MoreThe Veins of the Ocean by Patricia Engel
“I want to be forgotten. I want it to feel as if I’ve never existed. I want to be a stranger. Rootless.” A few days before reading The Veins of the Ocean I read, and enjoyed reading, Patricia Engel’s Vida, a collection of short stories centred on a Colombian-American woman. I was intrigued by the […]
MoreFruit of the Drunken Tree by Ingrid Rojas Contreras
Given that this book was described as being in the vein of Isabel AllendeI, I had quite high exceptions. While I did find the opening chapter to be intriguing, to compare Fruit of the Drunken Tree to Allende or Gabriel Garcia Marquez seems both lazy (a comparison that has less to do with substantial similarities—such […]
MoreVida by Patricia Engel
“I lay in the darkness, the song of Bogotá humming several stories below the window.” Patricia Engel’s Vida is a collection of nine short stories centred around the Sabina, daughter of Colombian parents, who grows up in the suburbs of New Jersey. Each chapter reads like a self-contained story, capturing a particular phase or moment […]
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