Sixteen-year-old Lara Montoya-Borislava and her mother, Yevgenia, find themselves renting a home at the Oasis Mobile Estates after making the journey from Nevada. Lara's life is a tumultuous whirlwind, marked by a lack of stability. Her mother, Yevgenia, is an eccentric, living life according to her whims, often leaving Lara in the care of others as she embarks on new romantic pursuits. When Yevgenia returns, it is never for long, as she continuously uproots Lara, perpetuating the cycle of impermanence. Lara hopes that this time they might settle down, but deep down, she knows that trusting Yevgenia is a risk. Yevgenia's erratic, self-absorbed nature is accentuated by her willingness to use her sensuality to achieve her desires. She remains enigmatic and withholds much about herself, leaving Lara to acknowledge her lack of understanding of her own mother.

"A Country You Can Leave" is a hard-hitting debut novel. The author fearlessly delves into the complexities of a tumultuous mother-daughter relationship, narrated from the perspective of a sixteen-year-old girl. Lara's narrative voice may come across as cynical at times, but her perspective is deeply influenced by her experiences with Yevgenia, her mother, whose behaviour has shaped her worldview. The story also explores the protective bond Lara shares with her neighbour's son, Brody, whom she often babysits. Additionally, the author delves into Lara's friendships, especially with Julie, who hails from an affluent family, and Charles, another resident of the Oasis who aspires to break free from his circumstances. "A Country You Can Leave" by Asale Angel-Ajani is a riveting yet poignant tale, that delves into the complexities of human relationships.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for sending a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was an engaging book that gives readers a brief glimpse into the lives of a troubled mother-daughter pair. Appreciated the specifics of this particular mother, it really made this book something special. I did find myself wanting to see more from the daughter, or some way for her to define herself beyond just in opposition to her mother. Beautiful writing though.

This is a beautiful but bittersweet debut about Lara, who is biracial and her Russian mother Yevgenia. Living in a trailer park called The Oasis, sixteen-year-old Lara never knows what to expect from her mother who loves her but must make ends meet and is often not around to parent her daughter. And so Lara learns from her friends, learns what she does NOT want to be from her friends and her mom's "boyfriends." It's poignant and deep, often painful to read as we long for Lara to have a "normal" childhood without being bailed out of jail or beating up someone threatening her choices. My heart wept for Lara as no one should have to endure growing up like this, but it's also a testament to the resilience and fortitude that resides deep inside ones soul; and it's what makes us human!
Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC!

Sixteen-year-old Lara and her mother Yevgenia live an itinerant lifestyle, and after finding themselves homeless once again, they end up at Oasis Mobile Estates -- a trailer park in the California desert that feels like anything but an oasis. Lara and her mother couldn't be more different. While Yevgenia, a Russian immigrant, is an eccentric and fiery free spirit, her daughter Lara is more reserved, more grown-up out of necessity, and craves stability in her life. Lara has long since given up on Yevgenia's parenting abilities -- which mostly consist of forcing her daughter to read Russian literature and writing drunken missives about men, sex, and relationships in a series of spiral-bound notebooks -- and longs to know more about her father, a Black Cuban immigrant with mental health issues who has never been part of her life.

Just as Lara begins to settle in to her new life at the Oasis, a brutal attack brings her and Yevgenia to a crossroads, where they are forced to examine the bonds of their relationship and forge a way forward -- either together or separately.

A Country You Can Leave is a luminous coming-of-age story about a young biracial woman trying to find her place in the world and a thought-provoking exploration of racism, poverty, and identity. At the heart of the novel is Lara and Yevgenia's complicated, dysfunctional mother-daughter relationship, rife with blistering resentments, frustrations, and misunderstandings, in which their roles are often reversed. Through these complex and vivid female characters, Asale Angel-Ajani explores intergenerational trauma, parental neglect, marginalization, alcoholism, sexuality, the immigrant experience, and racial and cultural divides. The supporting characters are nuanced and diverse.

A Country You Can Leave is very much a character study without a strong over-arching plot to anchor it. I found it meandered a bit too much for me, although I certainly appreciated Angel-Ajani's deft, thoughtful examination of a number of important themes. 3.5 stars rounded up.

Here’s a guidebook for how not to be a parent.
Sixteen-year old, Lara, and her mother, Yevgenia, are moving down in the world, into a crappy trailer home, in the middle of a crappy trailer park where everyone around them is as hapless and miserable as they are.
Yevgenia is Russian-born, and disdainful of pretty much all things American. She infuses a little Soviet Union in all things she does, including child rearing, when she bothers to parent at all. Lara’s struggle with her can be perfectly encapsulated with the dichotomy of cleaving - her desire to cling tightly to a mother who can’t be trusted to stick around, and her need to free herself from a relationship so toxic that it threatens her very existence.
Not a feel good story, for sure, but engrossing and sadly plausible.
My only real issue with this was with the audiobook, which was read without any Russian accent for Yevgenia. Her Russianness was such a huge part of her identity that it seems like a huge oversight and a definite disappointment.
Thanks to #netgalley and #mcdpublishing for this #arc of #acountryyoucanleave in exchange for an honest review.

A Country You Can Leave is one of my favorite books I’ve read this year so far.

This books follows Lara, a biracial high school senior who lives with her single mother. Her mother is… eccentric to say the very least. She’s a loud, abrasive Russian immigrant who frequently gives Lara “life advice” (it’s terrible advice) and doesn’t do a good job at looking out for Lara in any way. This book follows Lara as she tries to figure out who she is outside of her draining relationship with her mother and what she’ll do with her future.

Lara’s mother Yevgenia is one of my favorite book characters I’ve encountered in a while. She is so so infuriating and difficult to figure out. Lara has spent her entire life trying to connect with Yevgenia and receive the love she deserves from her. I felt like in just the brief year I spent with Yevgenia through reading this book I got to experience the same frustration and sadness that Lara did for 17 years. The setting this story takes place in is perfect. Lara and Yevgenia live in a rough neighborhood that sucks the lives out of its inhabitants. In a way it affected its inhabitants the same way Yevgenia affected Lara. This gave Lara even more that she needed to escape from. She needed to escape both her mother and her neighborhood.

In a way this book reminded me of All My Rage. Both All My Rage and A Country You Can Leave deal with immigrants and their children who have ended up living as victims to their circumstances in a random, soul sucking town. (spoiler ahead!) They also both allow the teenagers they feature to one day escape their circumstances and face the idea of “the American dream” from a place of wisdom that their parents never got to have. (End spoiler). The way Lara describes the way her neighbors are affected by their environment is so similar to the way Salahudin, Noor, and everyone they knew were affected in All My Rage. I want to read more books like this.

It took me a long time to get through this book because the heavy topics were tiring to me, but once I finally finished it I’d had a very very satisfying reading experience. I highly recommend this book to all of you, but please be aware of the content warnings.

I am torn about how to rate A Country You Can Leave. The first half felt like Groundhog Day in a run down trailer park. Definitely three stars. But a few pages later the story sprang to life with bold new story arcs, tensions rising, ultimately leading to a satisfying ending.
3 1/2* Recommend.

A riveting and heartbreaking coming of age story following a mother and daughter. The duo face any challenges and the story explores many different issues that they have to face in order to survive.

Many praises for the way that the author brought the characters to life.

A Country You Can Leave by Asale Angel-Ajani is a compelling memoir that explores the author's experiences growing up in the United States as a Black woman with Nigerian roots. The book follows Angel-Ajani's journey as she grapples with the complexities of her identity, including her feelings of displacement and a longing for connection to her Nigerian heritage.

Throughout the book, Angel-Ajani explores themes of race, identity, and belonging, offering a poignant and powerful reflection on what it means to exist at the intersection of multiple cultures. Her writing is both raw and evocative, and her personal anecdotes are both heartbreaking and inspiring.

Ultimately, A Country You Can Leave is a deeply personal and introspective book that offers readers a unique perspective on the immigrant experience in America. Angel-Ajani's candid storytelling and keen insights make this book a must-read for anyone interested in issues of race, identity, and cultural assimilation.

It's hard to believe this moving mother daughter story is a debut. Angel-Ajani compares families to countries as she explores what we owe ourselves and one another. This is bleak and difficult, but necessary. Your heart will break, but you won't be able to put this down.

I was so excited for this book and wanted to like it sooo bad. From the blurb, A Country You Can Leave ticked all the boxes on what I usually look for in a book: multigenerational trauma, being the "other", race, girlhood, mother-daughter relationship, "no plot just vibes", etc. But I was having the hardest time getting into this book! Even switching to the audiobook also didn't help. A few people have said that it read just like a diary of a 16yo, which I have to agree, except that I also felt her thoughts & ramblings are "too ripe" and obviously come from someone who's well into their adulthood. The story's (unresolved) resolution and dissonance between the characters made this hard to get through for me.

What a story! The writing was impeccable and the story had me so engrossed. This story, at times, was not an easy read. But, I found myself lured in. Lara, this young Black girl who was a kid, was forced by her mother to behave as an adult while navigating being a young. Black teenager. How Yevgenia, her mother, spun her ideologies onto her daughter, was shocking at times. Yevgenia was from Russian and had little faith in the U.S. education system and so the first 9 years of Lara's life dropped her off at the library instead of sending her to school. Lara's mom kept a journal which contained her rules about men and she relayed these to her 16yo daughter often. Even though I am done reading this story, I still think of it. It was so well done! I will post a review soon.

Angel-Ajani creates this compelling mother-daughter relationship and looks at what it is to not be what the other person wants or needs you to be. The anger and pain and dysfunction behind their push-and-pull dynamic is palpable. (But I will say the book does suffer from being about 50 pages too long.) 3.5 stars.

A deeply moving story about a mother and daughter at a crossroad of cross purposes who move into a desert trailer park. Mother is a Russian emigré whose neglect and abandonment left her daughter in the care of others for several years. Their relationship is fraught as the daughter enters her 16th year, then fractures utterly when trailer park violence harms the daughter during another episode of abandonment. It is gritty and realistic, an examination of coming of age without stability and without being able to rely on the stolidity of a person who has learned to parent. An exquisite first novel.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and the author, for an ARC of this book, in exchange for an honest review.
"A Country You Can Leave" is a debut novel by Asale Angel-Ajani.
I found it to be an engrossing, dark, raw & heartbreaking tale of an unique & complex mother-daughter relationship.
I will definitely be on the lookout for the author's next book.

A Country You Can Leave is a heavy read. It's the story of Lara, and largely centers around her tumultuous relationship with her eccentric mother, Yevgenia.

I read this book over the course of 24 hours, so it definitely kept my interest, but it was a downer. My heart broke for Lara over and over again, and I just wanted to see her have some small triumphs, some hope, some joy.

The book was well-written and certainly made me appreciate how fortunate I am to have the incredible mother that I have. It gave me a lot to reflect on regarding the different lives (and lifestyles) that people live.

Yevgenia was definitely a character unlike any other and it was so interesting to see her intellectual intelligence vs her emotional immaturity. It's also an important reminder of the way pain and trauma shape us and get passed on from generation to generation.

While I did like this book overall, I would suggest being in a good mental space if you decide to pick it up. It's pretty dark and heavy the whole way through. If you have any trigger warnings, I'd suggest looking them up prior to starting this book.

Thanks to Netgalley and FSG for the ebook. Sixteen year old Lara had been dragged from one home to another all her life by her hard living Russian mother, Yevgenia, and now they’ve just landed in a California motor home community, leaving Las Vegas behind them. Yevgenia reads voraciously, mostly Russian authors, and fills notebooks with life wisdoms, but she can’t seem to escape the bad short term boyfriends she picks, nor slow down her drinking. And she certainly can’t give her daughter, who supposedly has a black, Cuban father that she’s never met, the sort of love she needs. Told through Lara’s eyes, this is the story where a shy daughter and her over the top mother finally confront one another.

Yevgenia, or “Evie,” will never be the subject of a paean to motherhood. Evie consumes Russian literature and alcohol, is a skillful liar, and wears dominatrix pumps and savagely short, tight and bedazzled clothing that say things like “porn star” and “trashy.” The novel opens as Evie and pulls into the dubiously named “Oasis Mobile Estates.” She is scrutinized by the manager to whom she introduces her Black daughter, Lara, and gamely flirts to obtain a discounted rate on a dilapidated trailer. Evie had “accidently” defected from the Soviet Union in the 1980s, had a child with a schizophrenic Cuban exile, and left that child with acquaintances from various jobs and with people who owed her a favor. She was gone for nearly two years, and then she and Lara traveled from California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Texas and Mexico as it didn’t take much for Evie to “change directions – a passing conversation about a pretty town, a brochure for another state, a traffic violation, a man, a notice of past-due rent, boredom.” But even when Evie returns to collect Lara, she is a pathetic mother. One of Evie’s few admonitions to a 7 year old Lara who races home after being given a few bucks by a neighbor to perform fellatio is “ask for twenty” next time. As they settle in at the Oasis, Lara is sixteen years old and is preparing to cut the “weak strings of obligation” that tethered her to Evie. Lara tends to Brody, the neglected child who resides in an adjacent trailer, contemplates losing her virginity to Brody’s attractive but drug addicted dad, Steve, becomes friendly with a pregnant Filipina teen, Crystal, and Julie and Charles, the former a shoplifter who lives in a wealthy gated community, and the latter, a poor, Black, smart and gay fledgling poet. Lara navigates a new community and a new school, making an appointment to update her vaccine records which her mother had forged with “physicians” who were named after her former lovers. An engrossing and heartbreaking tale of a unique mother-daughter relationship.

A Country You Can Leave pulls back the curtain on teenage Lara and her eccentric mother, Yevgenia, as they move into a run-down trailer park and yet again attempt to restart their lives. This is not the first time the pair has been uprooted: they've been homeless, had close calls with CPS, and uprooted their lives on what seemed to Lara like a complete whim of her mother's. Despite the instability, Lara is infatuated with her mother and desperately wants her affection.

Yevgenia is magnetic. She can seemingly make friends wherever they go (though many of these friends become lovers who end on somewhat of a sour note) and can talk herself out of trouble like a seasoned conman. She is a proud Russian who loves classic Russian literature and vodka. She is brash, embraces her sexuality, and is always her full self, even when the situation begs her to be different. Lara, on the other hand, did not inherit these qualities from her mother. She is biracial and struggles to feel Russian enough. She is quiet and often embarrassed of her mother's antics in public. Her mother's robust relationship with her sexuality makes Lara feel uncomfortable figuring out how to come into her own. She finds herself wanting roots when her mother is constantly pulling them up.

Like many children, Lara doesn't know much behind what fuels her mother's actions. Yevgenia is quick to give quippy, fortune cookie fortune sized advice to Lara, but Lara is perplexed that she never seems to share anything real that provides true guidance or deepens their relationship. Throughout their time in the trailer park, their relationship continues to undergo tension and unexpected strain.

As the cracks between mother and daughter begin to widen and rays of light peek through, Angel-Ajani masterfully wields a prism that begins to split the mystery into trauma stemming from class, race, and surviving violence. Yevgenia may be the only home that Lara has ever known, but as she attempts to come into herself and piece their shared history together, she begins to ask herself: is "home" enough?

A compelling mother-daughter story. Yevgenia is a sexy, brash, self-taught, tough-as-nails Russian immigrant. Lara is her Black teenage daughter who lives in her mother's shadow. Together they have an unstable, transient life, moving whenever Yevgenia's restlessness sets in. The book starts as they land in a trailer park in a small California desert town. Old family patterns have followed them there, but Lara begins to build relationships with people in the park and beyond. In the process, she starts to discover more about herself, and realize she can't change her mother but she can change how she sees herself. I appreciated the nuanced depiction of a complicated mother/daughter dynamic and the ways it is impacted by violence, poverty, and racism. I also liked how Lara's growth was depicted. Angel-Ajani eschews a trite ending for one that felt brave and true. Thank you to Netgalley for the ARC.