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quigonchuy's review
1.0
DNF: I almost always finish a book, even when I am not enjoying the journey. I guess I am always optimistic that "it's going somewhere" or something will redeem it. But I just couldn't finish this one (got almost halfway through). If this was labeled a novel, I'd be totally fine. But trying to pass this off as non-fiction is just too much for me. There's everything from literal magic, to cursed dresses that will cause you to be a widow, to an alleged shared dream like 3+ people had that leads to them all going to Colombia to unearth the remains of a relative (and they go do it!), to thinking that head injury trauma is a gift because their mom also had a head injury? Like, it's out there. This would be a pretty good magical surrealism novel. But that's just not the reality we live in and I couldn't get through it.
juicygreenmom's review
adventurous
challenging
emotional
informative
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.0
kschlieper's review
3.0
I really wanted to enjoy this but had such a hard time getting through this. While I know this is a memoir, it didn't always read that way, I felt a bit confused on the intended genre as I read this. I learned about Colombian culture and family dynamics which I did enjoy, but I felt it was limited to a few characteristics that felt repetitively drilled in a could've been more encompassing. Maybe if I knew more about this instead of going in blind I would've liked this more.
midtownmoodreader's review
5.0
I’m not much of a nonfiction reader, but I really enjoyed this. I was captivated by Rojas Contreras’s story. My interest waned a bit towards the end—I felt like there was more commentary that began to feel repetitive than story in the last part—but I still highly recommend this book. The title and cover are also fantastic.
danielles_reads's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
I really enjoyed this. Since high school I've considered myself an atheist who believed anything attributed to the supernatural can be explained with science (like the author's dad when he first met her mom lol). But this book really made me consider that some things may just be unexplained and even if they do have some rational explanation (or are just random coincidences), they can mean a lot to the people they're happening to. Like Mami may not literally have clones showing up everywhere like the author describes, but they are a comfort to those who see them regardless, and that's all that matters.
I just really like how Rojas Contreras described things. She has a very poetic way of writing that still feels straightforward to me, not crossing the line into purple prose. The audiobook narrator really enhanced the writing as well to the point where I kept thinking it was the author narrating. I learned a lot about Colombia that I didn't know before. The author repeatedly said that she doesn't write for a white audience and doesn't want to overexplain things but I think she did just enough explaining for an outsider to understand the basic context (with a starting point to Google) without alienating her main audience. She also talked a lot about the effects of Spanish colonization of Colombia that shows how even people today have been influenced by it. I really liked learning about the curandero secrets as the author called them, as well as all the eerie parallels between her and her mother's life. The whole section abouther sister's eating disorder where she talks about the dichotomy between typical Western medicine and traditional indigenous medicine and having to bridge that gap for her mom was absolutely brilliant and eye-opening for me.
My main complaint about this is that it seemed like it started to lose steam near the end, as the author started repeating a lot of things already explained in the first half. It felt a little condescending tbh but it would have been avoided with some stronger editing. I think this book would have been 5 stars for me if it was about 30ish pages shorter. The whole mirror section (part 3) felt very superfluous, kind of like the author just wanted to write some poetic essay summarizing the rest of the book before finishing. I also started to lose track of all the many relatives by the end, but I think that was a factor of listening to this on audio. I did find it odd though that the author said in the beginning that the book was in chronological order except for one chapter when that wasn't the case at all?? Like she literally jumped around time throughout the entire book lol. I do think it was very effective and probably more meaningful that way but it threw me off that she described it as the opposite in the beginning.
Hoping to eventually add some of my favorite quotes here when I have the time because there were sooo many good ones. This is such a quotable book. I definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to expand their horizons, especially to those like me who don't believe in the supernatural.
I just really like how Rojas Contreras described things. She has a very poetic way of writing that still feels straightforward to me, not crossing the line into purple prose. The audiobook narrator really enhanced the writing as well to the point where I kept thinking it was the author narrating. I learned a lot about Colombia that I didn't know before. The author repeatedly said that she doesn't write for a white audience and doesn't want to overexplain things but I think she did just enough explaining for an outsider to understand the basic context (with a starting point to Google) without alienating her main audience. She also talked a lot about the effects of Spanish colonization of Colombia that shows how even people today have been influenced by it. I really liked learning about the curandero secrets as the author called them, as well as all the eerie parallels between her and her mother's life. The whole section about
My main complaint about this is that it seemed like it started to lose steam near the end, as the author started repeating a lot of things already explained in the first half. It felt a little condescending tbh but it would have been avoided with some stronger editing. I think this book would have been 5 stars for me if it was about 30ish pages shorter. The whole mirror section (part 3) felt very superfluous, kind of like the author just wanted to write some poetic essay summarizing the rest of the book before finishing. I also started to lose track of all the many relatives by the end, but I think that was a factor of listening to this on audio. I did find it odd though that the author said in the beginning that the book was in chronological order except for one chapter when that wasn't the case at all?? Like she literally jumped around time throughout the entire book lol. I do think it was very effective and probably more meaningful that way but it threw me off that she described it as the opposite in the beginning.
Hoping to eventually add some of my favorite quotes here when I have the time because there were sooo many good ones. This is such a quotable book. I definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to expand their horizons, especially to those like me who don't believe in the supernatural.
Content / Sources: 4.5
Structure / Organization: 3.5
Analysis: 5
Writing Style: 5
Themes: 5
Rating: 4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Eating disorder, Miscarriage, and Colonisation