This book is extremely good, such a force at just under 200 pages!

Infinite Country follows one family as they move from Colombia to the US. But as time progresses, their family ends up splintering, leaving the mother, her Colombian-born daughter and American- born son in the US, while the father and another daughter are back in Colombia. I’ve read a few books which expose the so-called American Dream for the mirage it is, but this is probably one of the best. Engel is economical with her style, but her sentences cut to the quick, making sharp points in 10 words that another author couldn’t mimic with a whole paragraph. The reader really gets a sense of the gnawing anxiety the family still living in the US suffer every day, especially after 9/11 when tensions were rising and anyone deemed a ‘foreigner’ by white Americans became subject to vitriolic abuse.

Although I understood the change in hindsight, at page 120 (out of only 190), the perspective shifts from third person to first, addressing the reader, and that did feel quite jarring. After finishing the book, it does make a lot more sense!

Overall, a really beautiful read, with such tenderly portrayed relationships - Elena and Mauro had my heart!