I enjoyed this down to earth memoir. I was drawn to the cross cultural theme (Fajardo’s mom is American and her dad is Colombian).

The author had the opportunity in adulthood to get acquainted with her father. Doing so led to some BIG revelations that rocked her world. She described her journey through this terrain well, making it easy to imagine myself in her shoes.

I found this to be a slow but rewarding read. Thanks to NetGalley and the University of Minnesota Press for the opportunity.

Only two years after being born in Colombia, Anika Fajardo's parents split and her mother moved her to Minnesota. Almost twenty years later, Anika traveled to Colombia to meet her father for the first time since the split. In <i> Magical Realism for Non-Believers, </i> she explores the ties of family, identity, and paths not taken.

Fajardo has an interesting story and perspective, and I appreciate the themes she takes on in this memoir. It's often overwrought with heavy metaphors and the narrative voice doesn't always feel consistent, but overall, I enjoyed it. I didn't mind the skipping around in the story other reviewers disliked, but I wish we had gotten to hear a little more of Fajardo's personality come through the over embellished prose.

Finding out you have a family you never knew about can be psychologically jarring, especially if you’ve always believed in your specialness as an only child. Through a visit to a Colombian father, she’d never known existed, Anika Fajardo also discovers she has a half brother in the United States. A well-written memoir, but I just couldn’t connect. I’m sure others will find her story compelling, especially those who have “found” family members.

Anika really helped me delve into other cultures through this memoir. While I found that it jumped around a lot and it was hard to follow at some points, I really enjoyed reading about her life, her quest to find out more about her father, and her background and heritage. Her imagining scenarios and creating made up thoughts for others was a little off-putting as well. I liked her writing style though for the most part...and what person hasn't thought "What If?" at some point in their life?

Thank you Netgalley and University of Minnesota Press for the advance copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review

I requested this ARC because I enjoy memoirs...however this one (and I feel bad for saying this) seemed like she didn’t need to write a memoir. I can’t stand when people imagine what others are thinking or feeling because that is so unfair to them. Anika did this a lot. I guess.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC.

This memoir read as a novel - emotional and heartfelt. I feel as if I know everyone involved in her life story personally. The narrative moved along and never got boring or self indulgent.

I was very interested to find out what Columbia is like from a personal perspective, but I would have liked perhaps more from a historical perspective as well. I actually felt the parts of her life that took place in Columbia were the most interesting.
Her stepmother sounded so lively and personable and her father didn't seem to be a bad guy, just someone who really cares about some things and is clueless about others - like most men.

Though Anika knew she had been born in Colombia, she had few memories of her life there. When she was a toddler, Nancy, her American mother, brought her back to Minnesota, framing the trip as a family visit until Anika was spirited away until her father Renzo finally returned to Colombia. The occasional letters exchanged left Anika more conflicted about her father and her family in Colombia, so when she was 21, she headed down to visit her father. Renzo was caring and welcoming, though Anika still felt a bit apprehensive. Renzo’s wife Ceci was warm and accepting of this adult child she had never met.

Anika seemed to be conflicted about being half Colombian in primarily white Minnesota, and I got the impression that she felt that to embrace one aspect of her culture was to deny the other part, and so she never believed she fully belonged anywhere. Even though Anika’s feelings are deep and real, it somehow didn’t transfer over into the story, and it seemed a bit shallow to me. This was a fast read, but not particularly satisfying.

Sometimes you feel like a book is speaking to your soul, even if the experiences being described in it are such that you can't relate, even if what's going on is so foreign to you that it's sometimes hard for you to comprehend how people (and since this is a memoir, real people) could behave in a particular way.

This book was one of those, for me. There was something about the writing that felt intimately personal, like I was Anika and she was me, or she was all of us, and I was just seeing an alternate universe, a possibility, through her eyes.

Maybe it's because often the latinx experience is made out to be just one thing, and Anika is presenting a different set of possibilities. Or maybe it's just because she's a really, really good writer, very much aware of the beats a story needs to hit to attract people. Or maybe it was just fate. I'm not entirely sure, but I don't want to question it.

If you're looking for a good, easy, emotional real, this is the book for you. If you want to support diverse writers, and diverse stories, this is the book for you. And if you want to feel like there's another story out there that isn't yours, but maybe, could have been, in another dimension, then this is most definitely the book for you.

This was a memoir-in-essays from a woman who met her father for the first time, when she was 21 year old. She had vague memories of him from her infancy, but nothing she could really claim. Along the way, she learns of a half-brother (only a few months apart in age), and how complicated life can become despite your best efforts.

I remember when I first started reading this, it read like a book report. Evidently, it stopped annoying me enough that I got over it.

Recommended for fans of biography and/or memoir genres.

I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley in return for a review.

Everything about the blurb of this book appealed to me but on beginning to read I found the narrative jumped around too much to keep my attention. I rarely give up on a read but unfortunately DNF this book

In the very beginning of this book, we learn that the author (a college student at the time) traveled to Colombia to spend time with a father she hardly knew. Instead of that being the entire plot of the story, it is just the jumping-off point.

In the rest of the book, Anika Fajardo tells the story of what happened after that visit, as well as the events leading up to it. She explains how she was born in Colombia but grew up in Minnesota, raised by her mom. After reconnecting with her father, she learns more about other family members, gets married, and has a daughter. When her daughter is about five, she takes another trip to Colombia, this time with her husband and child.

This book was an enjoyable look at the author’s life and what it means to be a family. Are familial bonds strong because of the relationships you develop through the years, or is there something about being genetically related that automatically connects you to someone? I don’t know if the author answers that question, but she provides much food for thought.

In addition to telling the stories of her family, the author also paints a vivid picture of Colombia, both through her visits and through her parents’ experience.

Thanks to NetGalley and University of Minnesota Press for the ARC.

I thought this was an earnest and authentic memoir about seeking family and the truth about yourself, which can be a really messy and uncomfortable journey. I thought the author did a great job of conveying the complex emotions that developed through the course of her relationship with her father. Fajardo does a great job of taking the reader along for the ride, and it is very easy to connect with the sense of belonging she seeks. It made me think a lot about my own family, both genetic and chosen, and how love fills and sustains our days.


Thank you Netgalley and University of Minnesota Press for the advance copy, which was provided in exchange for an honest review.

I received an e-copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley. Thank you!

A beautifully written story of a young woman with an American mother and a Colombian father who grew up in the United States and who discovers her Colombian ancestry and family only when she is a young adult. She first consciously meets her father at over twenty, and only later does she learn about other unknown members on that side of her family.

It was a compelling and fascinating read. Fajardo has a gift for gorgeous storytelling, and her language is truly lovely to read. It is a story about finding family, and trying to find oneself through finding one's roots.

Admittedly, I am not a 100% sold on the references to magical realism -- I am not sure its usage is entirely organic -- but hey, it drew me to reading this book, so I guess it works on a marketing level, at least.

As much as the title drew me in, it took me awhile to return to this book, trying to grasp ANika Farjardo's journey to COlumbia, trying to find her fmaily history truth.
Two parents who tore their family apart because of their incompatibilities, and the daughter who wa sliving in the US, while her father wanted to stay in Columbia when she was a child.
There, ANika flew to Columbia at age 21 to find truths and where to place her life story. A new foreign country that seemed very foreign to her and trying to fit in while getting to know her father.
It is a parents broken marriage that leads her to seek her fmaily roots, and she finds herself beginnign new roots as well,with a birth of her own child.
I wish i could have a memory of these chapters, but as I was reading,it is too detailed of a story, I was lost just as I realized one chapter happening.
Its a good memoir that could have been a greater story if less details were written into it. Maybe it was the wording of the stories, but I couldnt grasp the chapters.
It does describe the Columbian culture ebautifully, I felt like I was visiting.
Im sorry I couldnt finish the book,it didnt keep my attention and this is why it took me awhile to give my review.
Her memoir is a good story to tell but the less details, may make it easier to comprehend and read.
But thank you Netgalleyt for allowing me to read this book.

I really enjoyed Anika’s memoir. She was honest, sincere and took us to a place that many of us have never been. By this I don’t mean visiting Colombia, although her descriptions were excellent . I mean having parents spit between two countries. I was captivated by her detailed descriptions of Colombia, having never been, I have a very colorful image of it now. Her honesty regarding her feelings for her Dad, his wife, her Colombian family and newly discovered brother were a breath of fresh air. I kept asking myself throughout the the book “what’s with the title, A Magical Reality for Non Believers?” But I totally get it now. Sometimes we just don’t have any say over our destiny, decisions are made for us when we are too young to make a choice. I give her a lot of credit for being so open minded, forgiving and loving. Highly recommend.

I read the memoir Magical Realism for Non-Believers on a flight from Michigan to Mexico, delving into the culture, language and terrain before stepping foot on the ground, serendipitously preparing for the beauty and the people. This memoir is a story like many,; not knowing a parent, surprise siblings, seeing opportunities and family in a new light. It shows Anika grappling with decisions about family and life and how they come about. It’s a lovely little story about one young woman’s attempt and success at finding her true self in blended family. Thank you #NetGalley #Anika Fajardo #UniversityofMinnesotaPress #MagicalRealism

Anika Fajardo was born in Colombia to a Colombian father and an American mother. Her parents divorced when she was too young to remember her father and her mother raised her in Minnesota. As a young adult, Anika decides to travel to Colombia to meet the father she's never really known. Her memoir is a thoughtful and honest account of what it feels like to grow up as the child of a single parent, to grow up mixed raced, and to grow up as an only child longing for a sibling...or is she an only child? I found the mixed-feelings she explores about her father and her Colombian heritage and a surprise family member an absorbing story and look forward to more by this author. Thank you NetGalley for providing the ARC edition of this ebook.

This was a beautiful and moving memoir. For those of us who are American-born children of immigrants, especially Colombians, this memoir will resonate. It explores a search of self through a reconnection of roots, and echoes a truth of beauty and violence that I know from personal experience. The language is gorgeous and evocative, reminiscent of heightened attention to language found in magical realism. The story is familiar but with a unique focus: an adult child in search of reconnecting with the father who abandoned her, in the country of her birth but a country that is at once familiar and strange.

"I had wanted Colombia to prove to me how beautiful, magical, wonderful she was, to show me why my father had chosen her over me."

I also loved the exploration of memory and how malleable it can be.

While some of the shifting between past and present was a bit jarring at times, it wasn't enough to impact my reading. It might be because I was reading on an eReader. Thank you to NetGalley for the eArc.

Review posted in Goodreads.

In Magical Realism for Non Belivers, Fajardo takes the reader on her journey to reunite with her absent father in Colombia as she reckons with her connection/ disconnection from her culture and family lineage.

Short chapters moving through time catalogue the memories that give context to her time in Colombia, allowing the reader to understand the ways in which Fakardo is building a deeper sense of identity. Her writing is descriptive and straightforward, leaving space for a strong emotional honesty.

As an educator, this is a book I will happily share with my students looking for a mirror of how our sense of self, our connections, and whom we call family change over time.

I feel kind of bad giving a memoir such a low rating but I just didn't find this all that compelling. I'd agree with other reviewers who've said it jumped around a bit too much, too. Not for me unfortunately.