What a joy! I absolutely adored this book. "One Year of Ugly" is the debut novel for Trinidad-native, Caroline Mackenzie, and tells the story of Yola Palacios's family and how they navigate one year living under the harsh direction of a crime boss who exploits their illegal status as Venezuelans who escaped Maduro's rule to try to to create a better life for themselves in Trinidad. The ensuing tumultuous year is at times dangerous, thrilling, hilarious and sweet.
Mackenzie's writing is magnificent and I can't wait to read more from her. She does an exceptional job in "One Year of Ugly" portraying the depth and connectedness of the Palacios family. I enjoyed reading about their little squabbles but also how they supported one another and showed the love they feel for each other. It is so real to the complicated nature of living in a large family. This line might be one of my favorites in the book: "Because when your family members are cruising along a river of bullshit, sometimes it's best not to tell them how to navigate. The only thing to do is help them paddle ahead into clearer waters and leave the bullshit behind".
I highly recommend this book. Mackenzie brings to life an often over-looked human rights issue that is still happening in Venezuela and to large groups of people who flee their home countries looking for better lives. These groups are truly at risk of exploitation and that is something Ms. Mackenzie expertly highlights in such a real, raw way. 5 stars.

I will not be reading this book as it was pointed out to me by another reviewer (attached: https://www.instagram.com/p/CDyw4VhgUCq/).

I was excited to this voice because it was written about being a story of an immigrant experience that I haven't read. I also think that this was grouped as own voices work. To hear that the book put down immigrant experience and used harmful language. It is wrong to call people, "illegal", the correct term is undocumented and to imply a human being can be illegal is harmful. This book might be read by people who have experience with this and the fact that these harmful voices and sterotypes are in a book that claims to be light hearted is gross. Additionally, Jennifer highlights other problematic stereotypes in the book including sexism, ableism, and racism.

Additionally, there is a disgusting transphobic joke that is truly unacceptable

"Sent three days before she died, telling me I needed to pick up a copy of Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. 'About a hermaphrodite! Why don't you write about one of these transgender people? Everybody's eating that shit up right now. Nothing gets people going like someone fucking around with their genitals. Write about it, Yola! Go get yourself a man-made penis for research ja-ja! The maybe you'll win yourself a Pulitzer like Eugenides."

Honestly how this passage got through editing is disgusting. Gender identity is not a joke. This is highly problematic, I will be reaching out specifically to the publisher. This is wrong and problematic.

One Year of Ugly by Caroline Mackenzie was a struggle for me, and I’m not really sure why. It took me more than two weeks to get through it. I think this one takes some suspension of disbelief to get fully invested in, and you really have to be okay with vulgarity: sex, incest (still not 100% clear about this?), drug references, language, and violence. All that being said, the writing and plot are interesting and engaging, and the book is certainly unpredictable, so if you’re looking to be surprised, this could be your book!

I think what was also holding me back was whether this book was an accurate depiction of Venezuelan immigrants, or any immigrants, to Trinidad, and if so, was it contributing to a negative perception of refugees and “illegal” immigrants, since the Palacios family had come to Trinidad without any “legal” status and had apparently gotten mixed up with some shady characters to do so. Obviously, the plot is meant to draw empathy about their hopelessness and the kind of rock-and-hard-place mentality forced on immigrants and refugees and it certainly does that, but it still seems to suggest that you can’t immigrate without becoming intimately involved with “criminals.”

The other part that frustrated me was our protagonist’s, Yola, infatuation with a man who was helping to keep her family in subordination, and who she often seemed to feel more fear and concern for than for members of her family. I just couldn’t get on board with that. I also think that many of the characters, except for Yola and Aunt Celia, could’ve used more depth but it’s definitely a plot-heavy novel, rather than having a character development focus, so that’s understandable.

I would love to find some Own Voices reviews from people who have experience with immigration and refugees, particularly if they also have intimate knowledge of Venezuela or Trinidad, which I do not. I know that the author is from Trinidad and that she spoke with Venezuelans living in Trinidad to get a feel for the depth and purpose of the story and that certainly comes through, but I’d still love to find some reviews that address that aspect specifically.

I started this and read a few other reviews of the book. It has: a transphobic "joke;" racist stereotypes; and misogynist, racist and sexist statements. There was ableism and hyper sexualizing of women. This book is written by a white woman living in Trinidad. She wrote more about the white people in Trinidad living the good life. I am wondering if there are any OwnVoices reviews out there for this book.

One Year of Ugly by Caroline Mackenzie was an interesting novel, but I'm not sure what it accomplished what it set out to do. While the premise was promising and there was some good humor, there were some parts handled less than sensitively that took away from the story and added to the problems.
Many thanks to Simon & Schuster, 37 Ink, and NetGalley.

This book surprised me in a totally good way. If you describe the story straightforwardly it might not sound captivating but that's what it did to me from the very first page. I loved the vibrant writing style and it was laugh out loud funny, poignant and sexy in turn. The serious thread running through the book highlights the problems inherent to all refugees and I had no previous knowledge of the Venezuelans who have taken refuge in Trinidad. The colorful setting matched the equally colorful story. I'm looking forward to the author's next book very much.

A fun and sassy read. A lot of laugh-out-loud moments and a few very nice twists, with overall message that holds a lot of depth. I also really enjoyed the writing - I flew through the book, it's quite addictive and keeps you turning pages. Besides a few intolerable cliches - "I released a breath I didn't know I was holding" and using a certain dog breed in derogatory terms, I enjoyed it very much.

Recommend it as a quick and very entertaining summer read.

A snarky, humorous look at a serious subject. Yola is an illegal immigrant living in Trinidad, living a normal middle-class life until it's turned upside down by a local criminal mastermind. Amongst the drama of her family being blackmailed, Yola manages to fall for one of the handsome henchman.

This story was fun and full of laugh out loud commentary on the big, dysfunctional families we all have. From the drunk brother to the crazy aunt, Yola has it all. I enjoyed the romance aspect of the story as well as the look into Venezuelan and Trinidadian culture which I didn't know much about at all.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

Not for me, writing style, humor, and characters were not quite what I was expecting to get out of this. The plot was not intriguing the way I had hoped.

I’m kind of obsessed with this cover!
•
•
When Yola Palacios and her family flee Venezuela for greener pastures, they go to Trinidad where Yola’s Aunt Celia lives. They’re in Trinidad illegally, but it doesn’t seem to matter much until Celia suddenly passes away. Celia owes a lot of money to a local criminal called Ugly. Without the cash to pay off the debt, Ugly comes up with other ways to make them repay Celia’s debt or he’ll make sure their sent back to Venezuela. The Palacios family now finds themselves being visited by Ugly or his right hand man, Roman, and their lives are no longer their own.
I’ve never read a book with such a colorful cast of characters which made the cover art so much more appealing. This family, while full of crazy, is loyal and loving. While it is told from Yola’s point of view, it also includes journal entries from Aunt Celia in the past and gives a glimpse into who she was and rounds out the picture of this family. There are some deeper cultural and social issues happening in this book given the difficulties of Venezuelans in Trinidad.m, but there were also laugh out loud moments. It’s a great balance and made for a fantastic debut novel.
•
•
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

There were so many heavy topics in this one, but because it was told from the POV of a young woman, it didn't weigh me down too much. There was still humor in the book. I loved how the family did everything with love and support for one another.

In real life, we are all confronted with situations that are so extreme in their absurdity that they lend credence to reality. There are billions of humans and over, low-probability events occur. But if fiction is going to immerse us in a believable plot and setting with authentic characters, shouldn’t it also feature these types of absurdities? What I’m after is fiction that is believably “stranger than fiction.” When I find it, it’s delightful.

This is the main attraction of One Year of Ugly to me. Admittedly, I was dubious about the premise: a romantic comedy about undocumented Venezuelan immigrants in Trinidad who are surprisingly beholden to a crime boss. There were some clumsy moments, including some ableist language and (in my opinion) an overly simplistic overview of stripping. Despite this, the characters drew me into the story and I really enjoyed this book.

Thank you Netgalley and Simon&Schuster for a digital ARC of this book. It is out on shelves now! This would be a great read (or gift!) for anyone who enjoys fast and fun reads with substance.

Having never read this author before, I was pleasantly surprised with how action packed and intriguing the story was. Caroline has a way with words that keeps you turning the pages.

One Year of Ugly is a both a family drama and a rom-com, strange as that may seem. It highlights the plight of Venezuelan refugees who have fled to nearby Trinidad, but it does so with humor and empathy. I loved the characters who populated the Palacios family! The “Ugly” in the title refers to the nickname of a criminal in Trinidad who has provided the means for the family’s escape from Venezuela, or maybe he provided the false papers that allowed the teens in the family to attend a good school in Trinidad (I wasn’t totally clear on that point) in return for their unpaid debt (upon the unexpected death of Aunt Celia, who organized the deal). The story highlights the difficulties that undocumented immigrants suffer through, whether in Trinidad or elsewhere. There are scary and sad portions of the book, but there are also some laugh-out-loud portions too.

Recommended.

Thank you to both Goodreads for a giveaway win (a hard copy that still hasn’t shown up in my mailbox due to COVID-19-related delays) and to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for an advance reader copy in exchange for my honest review. Caroline Mackenzie is a Trinidadian native and you can feel her love for her country throughout the book.

One Year of Ugly tells the story of the Palacios family as they find themselves being blackmailed into servitude by the man who helped them escape Venezuela and smuggled them into Trinidad, although they weren't even aware that they had a debt to pay.
Caroline Mackenzie has figured out a way to tell a story centered on a complex and often dark topic in such a way that it's funny and endearing. She says it best in the author's note: "There is nothing that makes even the heaviest subject more accessible than humor." Even when things are darkest for the Palacios family, there's an undercurrent of humor, and even absurd, to keep things from getting too dark.
This is a very human novel that tells the story of a specific family but can be about pretty much any refugee in history. They run away from the darkness in their own country only to find themselves seen as less than just because they had no choice but to run.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for the read.

This is the story of the Palacios and how they escaped from one tyrant in Venezuela and fell into the hands of another in Trinidad. Told from the point of view of Milagros, the oldest daughter of the Palacios family, this is a sometimes hilarious sometimes disturbing but always touching debut novel. There is a little bit of everything I laughed, I cried, I cringed. The author tackles some incredibly problematic subjects such as statutory rape, racism, cultural hypocrisy in a sarcastic and picaresque style but personally, I don't think that the condemnation of those subjects came through strongly enough. The commentary simply did not have enough teeth. I still think it's a fantastically fun book that people should check out.

I would like to thank the author, publisher and Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

This book was not what I expected. I'm not really sure I liked it. There are a lot of stereotypes in this book, and i just don't care for books like that. I'd hoped for a fun, funny book, but the subject matter was a lot more harsh than I expected. The cover art looks like a fun beach read, but this is just not that type of book in my opinion.

Once I got into the story, what was going on, and that it was a more serious novel, I did enjoy the writing. I don't think I've read a book about a Venezuelan family or located in Trinidad, so it was all new to me. Maybe a different cover and genre category would have helped to put me in the right mind set for reading this book.

When the Palacios family comes under the control of a local thug who arranges transportation from Venezuela to Trinidad after the death of a beloved Aunt. She died owing the ":gentleman" for false papers for her daughters so the can go to private school. Now the entire family are hosting illegal immigrants between getting to Trinidad and finding homes of their own.

The situation becomes complicated when the narrator Yola sexually attracted to the muscle Ugly leaves behind muscle to keep eye on them making sure they do not go to the law. As if they could they are all illegal themselves.

I will more than likely recommend this novel although I will give a disclaimer the story is loaded with stereotypes. At times they for me at least were off putting. The story held my interest thru out which is always a plus. Another plus was the well rounded characters.

I really enjoyed this book! I grew up in Trinidad so I hoped that would be the case, but Mackenzie highlights many parts of the island that I never knew or experienced growing up. This book is really funny, with a main character whose sarcastic and wry personality is a great vehicle to understand the dynamics of the Palacios family, and offers a moving portrayal of the plight of undocumented immigrants who are often forced into impossible situations and taken advantage of as they search for a better life. With the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela, thousands have flocked to Trinidad, a small island nation with limited resources, and it’s a story that’s not getting enough attention. One Year of Ugly is a great family drama about loyalty, dealing with loss, and how to keep your loved ones safe. Mackenzie’s writing and storytelling is vivid and lived in, and she did a great job shifting from the lighter to more serious tones. There were some great descriptions about the natural beauty of Trinidad though I wish we got more. Either way, great read overall!

This book grew on me, it took a few chapters to be fully invested but it was a really original book. I enjoyed Yola and her family, I liked that there were some political, romantic and family dynamic plots! Netflix is also pick this up! It not like most novels I’ve read and I enjoyed its uniqueness!

Thanks to #NetGalley and #SimonandSchuster for the advanced copy.