I received a complimentary electronic ARC of his debut novel from Netgalley, Asale Angel-Ajani, and publisher MCD. Ms. Angel-Ajani has a nicely filled writing portfolio but this is her first novel. It is a doozy.

A Country You Can Leave is a foray into immigration, prejudice, and poverty, a clear look into the life available to those new citizens of the USA, ways to stay out of the limelight, and the cracks and bottomless gullies of our health and educational systems.

Existence in our nation for those just coming in can be simple but is more apt to be one thing after another that holds these new citizens down. It was most enlightening to see the problems from the other side. We have massive numbers of folks from European countries, families at our southern border, those facing natural disasters, in our resident illegal aliens, all crying for a stable home, to leave behind the awful lives they had where they were. We have to do better than we are at this point in this epidemic of need from the world's homeless. I don't have the answers, but I now understand better the questions.

Asale Angel-Ajani's remarkable debut, A COUNTRY YOU CAN LEAVE —centers around a mother and daughter duo trapped by circumstances. Lyrical, raw, emotional, and often heartfelt, yet witty.

I LOVED the opening of each chapter with life rules to follow (from the spiral-bound notebooks) by the mom for her daughter! Lessons about sex, men, politics, and reading habits—her meager inheritance)—Hilarious! a highlight of this well-written novel. I bookmarked many pages and was fortunate to have the e-book to accompany the audiobook!

Lara is a sixteen-year-old biracial teen girl with an eccentric fiery Russian mom, Yevgenia. From one job and town to another (always on the move), from one dead-end position to another, just trying to survive.

Accustomed to being homeless and her mom taking off, they are now at the rundown Oasis Mobile Home Park in the California desert.

"A desert is a place that lulls a person into believing that nothing is required of them until it's nearly too late, and suddenly, you need all of your faculties to survive."

It is difficult for Lara to have friends since they move around a lot. She does not fit in. The mother-daughter duo has a love/hate relationship. Lara feels her mom does not love her and is embarrassed because she is black. Lara wants to know more about her dad (a Black schizophrenic gifted Cuban musician).

Her mom, a bartender, is loose, loud-mouthed, opinionated, an alcoholic, well-read, wild, unconventional, and enjoys sex. She pays more attention to customers and Lara's friends than she does to her daughter.

She reads a lot, and some might even be impressed with her knowledge. She constantly quotes Russian literature and is not interested in providing a stable, secure home in a traditional sense.

The mom does not like Americans or men (edicts laid out in the notebook quotes). She believes in tough love and has no compassion for others. She is loud and vocal with a foul trashy mouth. One of Lara's friends even called her very "cosmopolitan."

Told from Lara's POV, she loves to read. She is affected by her mother as all she knows. I loved her friend, Charles, the budding poet, and their experience with the literary scene.

The mother-daughter relationship is complex. There are heated arguments, frustrations, misunderstandings, and resentments.

Even though Lara appreciates her mom's independent spirit, she is not the sharing type. In Lara's quest to find her dad, a brutal attack brings some of her mom's past trauma to the surface. Lara finds her life full of confusion and contradictions. Lara wants her mom's acceptance. Lara has relied on her mom, but now she has an impulse to pull away to discover her self-identity.

Topics: Immigrants, culture, race, class, mental health, poverty, acceptance, mother-daughter relationships. I loved the ending!

A COUNTRY YOU CAN LEAVE packs an emotional punch. Told with passion and humor. Sharp-witted with a colorful cast of fun characters, a compelling yet eye-opening realistic view of the obstacles faced by multiracials. A world of desperation and beauty.

I enjoyed the love of books, literary aspects, and reading portrayed throughout the book. The memories of books and stories have the power to shape our lives.

The author's writing is poetic, lyrical, and stunning. The author has been added to my favorite author list, and I cannot wait to see what comes next. This is different from your ordinary coming of age. It is explosive! I would love to see another book like this written from the mom's perspective.

AUDIOBOOK: thoroughly enjoyed the audiobook narrated by Amanda Cordner for an outstanding performance and listening experience. Highly entertaining.

For fans of books, I have read most recently: Margot, Maame, and The Applicant. I listened to the audiobook of all four of these and highly recommend them.

Thank you to #MacmillanAudio, #FarrarStrausandGiroux #MCD, and #Netgalley for a gifted ALC and ARC. #covercrush

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www.JudithDCollins.com
@JudithDCollins | #JDCMustReadBooks
My Rating: 4 Stars
Pub Date: Feb 21, 2023
Feb 2023 Must-Read Books

Check out the fascinating Interview with Asale Angel-Ajani with Literary Hub.

Absolutely LOVED this book! It wasn't at all what I was expecting and I was so moved by this story. You will not be able to put this book down.

The daughter of a Russian immigrant and a Black Cuban struggles with her mother's selfishness and anger and the extreme poverty and despair of the run-down trailer park they live in.

This story centers on 16 year old Lara and her nomadic, homeless life with her mother Yevgenia. They settle in a trailer park, an interesting parody of their lives. Yevgenia finally enrolls Lara in school. Lara finds friends whose lives are so much different than Lara's. Sex is a constant theme as well. They spend most of the book trying to keep a certain distance between theme. While there is a major controversy, most of the book is a series of tales of their ordinary, poor lives.

In the book Lara has to go through hard times. She's a biracial teenager. Lara lives through so much of growing up without a father, family legacy, living with her Russian mother and her mother's love for reading books can sometimes help her.

Thanks to the publishers Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book for a review.

Four friends have stolen aboard the Titanic. They're after the Rubaiyat - a book inlaid with priceless jewels. Josefa is a charismatic thief, Hinnah a daring acrobat, Violet an outstanding actress and Emilie a talented artist.

It is Josefa's plan, but she needs all of their skills. Despite their very different backgrounds, in a world of first-class passengers and suspicious crew members, the girls must work together to pull off the heist of their lives.

Lara and her flamboyant mother have known what it’s like to move around. When they land at a down on their luck trailer community, it’s up to Lara to navigate live as a biracial teen.

I love a story about the mother and daughter relationship. This was a difficult one to read but I enjoyed it. It’s pretty dreary and not very hopeful, but you feel for the main character the whole way. I would love another book of this but more from the mother’s perspective. That would be so interesting as well.

“Sometimes you have to play nice to get what you want. But always carry a knife in your back pocket. Importantly, be ready to use it.”

A Country You can Leave comes out 2/17.

4.5 rounded down

It's the year 2000, and 16-year-old Lara and her mother, Yevgenia, find themselves in the Oasis Mobile Estates in rural America. Lara, Yevgenia's only daughter, is biracial and has never met her father, her mother absent for extended periods of her childhood. She wonders if this new trailer park will signal a fresh start for her, a place to settle down and make new friends - however Yevgenia, a Russian immigrant who lives to her own set of self-prescribed rules she likes to share with her daughter - does not seem destined to change her ways. Until one day a horrific attack changes everything and the mother and daughter are forced to reassess their fractious bond.

A coming of age narrative which presents a unique mother/daughter relationship but which never verges on sentimentality. Not an easy read, but highly recommended.

Some good solid writing with many quotable lines from this author! It's a very meaty tale of a biracial teenager and her Russian mother who are living in a trailer park in California at the moment. This is grit lit at its best. Their family and the families around them are so dysfunctional that it almost defies belief, except it is presented in such detail that the reader has no choice but to accept their lives and bleed for them and their futures. There are no candy coated endings here. So much to absorb, plenty to discuss, this would be an excellent book group choice.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. I predict it will do very well!

Although not an easy or particularly uplifting read, "A Country You Can Leave" pulled me out of a reading slump with its portrayal of a deeply complicated mother-daughter relationship, layered within the context of immigration, racism, and poverty.

Through sixteen year old Lara's eyes, we see her Russian immigrant mother, a fascinating mix of trashy and intellectual, we watch their relationship as Lara clearly wants love and acceptance from her mother, which is doled out through dictums about relationships and sex, and generally held out of reach. We see the dusty, depressing surroundings of the trailer park that Lara and her mom live in, and meet the wide cast of characters who share that space, as well as the high school.

Angel-Ajani's writing brought the characters to life in a way that will stay with me long after this story is done. Thank you to Net Galley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux publishing for the opportunity to read the advance copy of this book.

This book was incredibly well-written but at the same time, very hard to read. I found my heart breaking again and again for Lara. I thought the characterization was very strong, and it was a very well-told story.

A Country You Can Leave is a bleak and unflinching look at the life of biracial teenager Lara, and her Russian immigrant mother Yevgenia, and their rootless existence in California.

Lara feels both both bound to and alienated by her mother, a woman who seems to alternate between quoting Russian philosophers and tending bar in skimpy clothes meant to attract the attention of the men she serves. Honestly, I feel inept and unable to properly review this book. It was both off putting, and engrossing, sending the same mixed signals as Yevgenia in her role as mother to Lara.

I'm amazed at how well Lara is able to adapt and thrive despite the lack of any real "care" being given by her mother. The ending doesn't wrap things up neatly and succinctly, but I still feel optimistic that Lara will be able to become her own person, and find her own place in life.

Thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for the electronic ARC for review.

I REALLY loved the first like 100 or so pages but after that, it started to feel very repetitive. I think there's something really interesting in the bones but it needs tightening.

Stories about mother-daughter relationships fraught with tension and conflicts are nothing new. If you need a story that wraps up nicely in the end, this might not be for you. There are few warm fuzzies in this story. However, it is a bracing, engrossing, and powerful story about a Black biracial teen, her eccentric (and neglectful) Russian-born mother, and their itinerant life.

Lara is a resourceful, brilliant, conflicted teenager longing for a "normal life," which is disdained by her mother and denied her by society due to her family's poverty and her skin color. She is a wholly unique and unforgettable character; one of the best I've come across in a while.


Many thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux/MCD and NetGalley for a digital review copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was an amazing book, although it's about a mother/daughter relationship, it's doesn't fall into the usual storyline most follow. Lara and her mother, Yevgenia, arrive at their latest in a long list of residents, they are greeted by the landlord, Yevgenia uses her many skills to get a deal on the rent. Oasis Mobile Estates, a mobile home park that would not be considered an oasis by most people, the homes are old and rundown, most are marginally livable, but it's home for now. Yevgenia is Russian, escaping a terrible home life she immigrants to the USA to start a new life. Along the way she meets Lara's father, a black man of Cuban descent, he's no longer in the picture and Lara has never met him. Lara is 16 and her mom enrolls her school where she meets two new friends who she hangs out with, mostly at her place. Yevgenia is a troubled soul, an alcoholic, distracted mother, promiscuous and prone to leaving Lara alone for periods of time. Yevgenia keeps a notebook where she writes down her thoughts on men, how to find the best one, which should be avoided, these thoughts appear at the beginning of each chapter and sometimes in the middle, some of them are quite funny. After a party thrown by her mom, Lara is brutally attacked but luckily not raped. The cracks on the mother/daughter relationship widen after this. This was a few good book and I would highly recommend. Thanks to #Netgalley and #MCD for the ARC.

Why am I the first tor ate and review this? Can my praises change that? Let’s find out.
A family can be very much like a country. For one thing, it can be difficult to leave. But also…best case scenario, it can provide a sense of belonging and pride, somewhere to be safe, loved, taken care of. At worst…well, it can make for some terrific literature.
That’s what this book is…terrific. Stunning. Awesome.
There are plenty of mother/daughter relationship stories out there and most of it falls prey to cheap sentimentality, triteness, clichés. This novel does none of it, averting every pitfall along the way with expertise of a car race driver…something especially notable for a debut, and resulting in a story that hits all the right notes and then tears the strings out. Bam. Done. Make of it what you will.
This novel is unapologetically unsentimental, unflinchingly visceral, and unorthodoxly about love. Albeit, love – the real thing, the kind that guts and scars.
A most courageous endeavor and a most courageous novel about it.
Don’t make a mistake of dismissing it as just a coming-of-age novel either, although the narrator is sixteen. There’s nothing teen or twee about it.
Lara is a smart kid who has been denied any semblance of a normal life for so long, that she ends up craving it desperately. Alas, with a mother like hers - an embittered émigré, emotionally crippled by childhood abuse, intellectually frustrated well-read pentalingual, promiscuous, alcoholic, daring, wildly unconventional and seemingly comprised of razor blades and edges – normalcy is an impossible thing.
When the two of them come to their most recent temporary landing at the Oasis trailer park in California desert, things at long boil over, all the frustrations, all the resentments, all the misunderstandings.
What a book. What a powerhouse of a book. Absolutely riveting. If you follow my reviews (and you really should ;) ) you know how many books I read and this was a definitive standout among them. The way this author writes, the emotional punches she throws…just wow.
The characters of this book come alive, every wrinkle, every flaw, every aspect of beauty. Especially the main two. Especially the mother. The way the author (who isn’t Eastern European it seems) gets the dark melancholy of the Slavic soul – it’s poetry in motion. Many kudos.
This novel is what looks and hopes for in proper literary fiction. Recommended. Thanks Netgalley.