Well well done. A bit disjointed but the uncustomary prose carries the day. Catalina is quite the extraordinary young lady, seems truly unbothered by it all. Though she is a Harvard student and an undocumented immigrant from Ecuador she remains truly unfazed by all that is happening around her. Her parents died in Ecuador so she was sent to America to stay with her undocumented Grandparents. One would think this setup would lead to some trauma filled writing, this is however very artfully avoided and instead we are presented with the wonderful character of Catalina and her eclectic thoughts on a myriad of subjects. This is quite a reading experience and one I think is worth indulging. Bravo! Big thanks to Netgalley and One World Publishing for an advanced DRC.

Turns out I need to be in the right mood to read about the self-absorbed, stream-of-consciousness thinking of a college student. This book made me wonder how I would feel reading Catcher in the Rye as an adult.

Though the writing style wasn’t bothersome and is a welcome way to get into the mind of the protagonist, I must admit – sometimes, I just didn’t care.

Catalina kind of reminded me of when I’d be at a party in college and inevitably be cornered by a friend who wanted to go on and on about organized religion while also veering into other random topics without notice. Part of it was interesting, but eventually, I lost the point of the story.

One of the more interesting aspects is Catalina’s Dreamer status (her family escaped Latin America as undocumented immigrants), which she dips into, but again with either an extreme obsession or detachment, the same methodology she applies to everything else in her life.

The cover is gorgeous, and I appreciated the writing, but it didn't quite fit what I thought the story was going to be.

This is such a unique book that kept me hooked until the very end. The harsh realities that Catalina faces are so well written and gives the reader so much insight into the plight of the character - Karla Cornejo Villavicencio is such a powerful voice in writing and I am so grateful to have read this book.

"The air quality in our home was not good for me, and when I was twelve, my pediatrician said that I had asthma. I was aghast. I was born nine thousand feet above sea level! My lungs were supposed to be spectacular. Did my pediatrician not know? Should we tell her?"

Catalina's sense of humor made this such a JOY to read. Being in Catalina's mind as she navigates her first year at Harvard unapolgetically herself was a hilarious treat. Yes, there are similarities to Elif Batuman's "The Idiot" (in both its humor and Harvard setting). but that is one of my absolute favorite books. Really loved the depth added with Catalina being an undocumented immigrant and seeing how this is explored in heartbreaking yet incredibly realistic ways. These added layers create a poignancy that differs from "The Idiot," and I deeply appreciated this storyline.

Thank you to NetGalley for allowing me to discover a new favorite!

I loved Karla's first book, "Undocumented Americans", so I knew I had to read her fiction debut. Catalina is a coming of age story about an undocumented gal navigating life, love, and uncertainty while at Harvard. One of the main things I enjoyed about this book is that Catalina is not one dimensional -- although she is undocumented, that's not the focal point of the story. The ending was a shocker! I highly recommend!

A story about Catalina, an undocumented immigrant raised by her grandparents and her experience at Harvard. I recommend this book.

We follow Catalina, in her final year as a student at Harvard. Catalina was born in Ecuador, and orphaned as a baby after she survived the car accident that killed her parents. SHe was raised by an aunt and uncle until she was shipped off at 5 to live with her grandparents in NYC. The big problem she and her grandparents have always faced is they are all undocumented, and being undocumented dictates every action they take. Catalina beat the odds and earned a scholarship place in Harvard, she is in her senior year and getting ever closer to a point where her undocumented status will hold her back from having the career she wants.

What can't this author do, her writing speaks to a part of my soul. Ever since I read her book The Undocumented Americans I have not been able to stop thinking about it. I was privileged enough to be born a citizen of the country I live in, my parents were able to leave South America and come here with their papers so I have never had the fear of being undocumented or my family being undocumented but I understand how we are very lucky to be in this position. So many Latine families do not live with the same security I have had my whole life. So Karla's writing and perspective of people and characters who do live those lives make me understand in a way I could never on my own. Her writing is so beautiful and flawless, it is so readable and compelling. Her characters were so well written, I can 100% see them as real people in my family. You understood all their flaws, and connected with their strifes. They had dreams, ambitions, emotions, and hardships. I honestly this this should be required reading it was a stunning novel.

I would say that I have mixed feelings about this book.
On one hand, I liked Catalina and wanted things to go well for her. On the other had, she was self-sabotaging much of the time and I was frustrated by it.
Another thing was the writing - the book was very readable, but much of it was basically stream-of- consciousness and jumped around too much for my liking.
Overall, I'd say this was a good book, and gave me insight into what it's like to be undocumented. There were some flaws that made it less enjoyable for me, but generally I liked this.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to read an advanced copy.

I really liked The Undocumented Americans and was interested to read fiction by the author. Unfortunately the stream of consciousness style and character driven (light on plot) story wasn’t for me and I decided to DNF at 57%. Thank you to the publisher for the free book to review.

Catalina by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio is the story of a undocumented immigrant who is going to attend Harvard ad her time there. She came to America at a young age after losing her parents and living with her undocumented grandparents. She does very well in school which opens doors for her. Dreaming is easy, but is her dreams, wants and needs within her reach when afraid of losing everything? Her journey was not always easy but gave us insights to her aspirations and fears. This story was moving and complicated and definitely left me wanting to read more from this new to me author.

Happy reading!

I didn't think I would honestly like this book. I did really enjoy it and read it in one day! I would definitely recommend it to all my family and friendsl

Catalina is almost a stream of consciousness novel, where the main character shares all her thoughts over the course of her final year as an undocumented American at Harvard. The story is messy and at times disjoined, but still a very compulsive read.

Despite the sporadic storytelling which made this read like a memoir, I was moved to tears repeatedly due to my similar life experiences. If I hadn’t related so closely to the main character, I may have reviewed this differently based on the writing, but absolutely believe it’s worth a read for any immigrants or those who love an immigrant.

I normally read litfic but for some reason this book caught my eye. I actually really enjoyed it. To say this was all vibes is an understatement. The main character Catalina is extremely toxic but I loved the way the author wrote her narrative. The book was written in such a manic way... but honestly that's how I think too so I loved it. This is very much heavy on illegal immigrants and the resulting trauma living as an illegal immigrant on Catalina. All in all I really enjoyed this and the audiobook. It's also pretty short if you want a short read.

Thank you @netgalley and @randomhouse for the arc.

A campus novel with an incisive, self-contradictory woman narrator? Say less.

Catalina by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio came out late last month and it is, I’d venture to say, an updated blend of The Bell Jar meets The Catcher in the Rye, in a good way. Like both of those novels, the narrator’s titular protagonist, Catalina, is engaging with elite programming/schooling (in this case, she’s a senior at Harvard) while also kind of hating it. The disdain she feels is folded into familial pressures, class experiences, and her undocumented status, creating a veritable cocktail for a complicated, stormy coming-of-age story.

Catalina, the narrator, is wry and, at times, painfully self-aware. (“ I fear that sometimes everything I think and believe myself to feel about the world is just an amalgamation of passages from books I read as a kid or sound bites from opinions my grandfather expressed in 2004,” she writes. Or, “The vernacular of small creatures is dreaming of vengeance. I remember every animal I’ve seen as roadkill, every single one.”)

There are two main thrusts to the story: one, Catalina’s interest in a boy named Nathaniel who is studying anthropology, specializing, painfully, in Andean cultures; the other is around her and her grandparents’ undocumented status. In one moment, Catalina is throwing up at a party; in the next, she’s brainstorming ways to shield her grandfather from deportation, vexed over keeping her own undocumented status mostly a secret.

It’s easy to fall into the voice of Catalina, the narrator. She leads you through her internal monologue, her various feelings about organized religion, her home country of Ecuador, her relationships with her grandparents, and her desperate desire to fall in love with such cracking energy that you hardly register you’re being taken on a ride at all. She’s disaffected; she’s hopelessly hopeful — the contradictions fit into one another in the irrationally logical way feelings work in real life. And they come at just as fast of a clip.

That said, I’m a real sucker for pacing, and there were two moments in this novel that I wish had been stretched out a bit more; one being Catalina’s decision to take her grandfather’s immigration case public, the other being the ending, which is sudden (in a truly Salinger/Plath way, to be fair).

There is an argument, a very good one, that desperate people do desperate things. This accounts for a lot of human behavior! But, in a novel, readers need to see the psychology behind apparently irrational decisions. When Catalina agrees to eschew her family’s privacy for their protection, the reader is left out of the decision. In fact, no one in the know appears overly surprised about what she’s doing, not even the celebrity director she recruits to help her. After spending so many pages deeply inside Catalina’s psyche, I found myself wanting to have just as much access to her complicated feelings in that moment as I did about, say, asking a cute boy she saw on the street to tie her shoes.

It’s a blip, albeit one that can be mostly overlooked for the sake of soaking in Catalina’s ongoing narration about the people and places around her.

This was a deep exploration of being an undocumented immigrant from the POV of the titular main character, Catalina. Her whole life rightfully revolved around her immigration status, and this explored her time at Harvard and how she is impacted by all the different decisions happening in the country, her community, and her family. The writing was vivid and beautiful. But the stream of consciousness does take intentional effort when reading.

Follows one year in the life of Catalina, an undocumented citizen and Harvard student who is constantly confronted with the vast differences in her life vs those of her peers. This is told in a very stream of consciousness way that left me hard pressed to remember many specifics about the story, although I did love Catalina as a character.

This is a really interesting book, what a cool fiction debut! I had a bit of a hard time staying focused because this book is mostly stream of consciousness and kind of roams all over the place but that’s also part of the charm. It’s very no plot, just vibes. A great addition to the campus coming-of-age canon, and a welcome Latin American voice.

How Much Are You Allowed to Dream

Graduate from Harvard and you have it made. The world is your oyster– your future’s so bright you gotta wear shades. You are seen as the cream of the crop, the brightest of the bright.

Catalina Ituralde is in her last year at Harvard. She is not your typical undergraduate, though– there is very little typical about her. She is an orphan from Ecuador, undocumented, and being raised by her undocumented grandparents. Having arrived here at a very young age, she has always felt an outsider, seen as an “other.” Her grades have propelled her into Harvard, but an uncertain future beyond graduation has her overwhelmed at times. From outside it seems she has won life’s lottery; a Cinderella story of a poor immigrant girl who is living the American dream. Inside, she often feels immobilized by the high expectations everyone has set for her.

Catalina does not remain a victim. She understands she is living with the ultra-privileged and refuses to be intimidated. She is attracted to the good-looking Nathaniel Wheeler, the son of a famous film director. She even fantasizes about a life with him, that people will say she found “a good man.” She quickly rejects this trap at their romantic peak. “He fell asleep on top of me. I was too young to have men fall asleep on top of me.” She kisses him and sneaks across to a Denny’s, “desperate to do something I could not take back.”

The sudden threat of the deportation of her grandparents abruptly brings Catalina’s focus beyond campus walls. Even as she makes a stand to save her family, she finds herself being used as a liberal cause, a curiosity. This will not stand.

Karla Cornejo Villavicencio is one of Harvard’s first undocumented graduates. This is her first novel, following the success of her nonfiction “The Undocumented Americans.” There is obviously a lot drawn from her life experiences, but she has succeeded in creating a bold, fearless woman who refuses to be confined by the expectations of others.

Thank you to Random House / One World and NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. #Catalina #NetGalley

Thank you to NetGalley, Random House, and Karla Cornejo Villavicencio for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Catalina Ituralde, born in Cotopaxi, Ecuador, is finishing her senior year at Harvard as Congress debates the Dream Act (2010 - 2011). Beneath her high-achievement and assimilation, Catalina is hiding fear and loneliness. After her parents were killed in a car wreck when she was an infant, she lived with an aunt and uncle before settling with her grandparents in New York City. Becoming a "dreamer" would allow Catalina so many opportunities - the ability to visit Ecuador, be employed, and stop worrying about her grandfather's immigration status.

Catalina is struggling with her mental health while meeting all the social expectations of attending Harvard, including dating a white man whose family studies South American culture. Her criticism of elite education, colonialism, and immigration policy are biting and enjoyable. When Catalina is overtaken by depression and fear and anxiety, it feels both inevitable and heartbreaking.

I was first introduced to Cornejo Villavicencio in her nonfiction - The Undocumented Americans. Her compassion, empathy, and social activism transferred well into Catalina's fictional world.