Thank you NetGalley for this ARC.

This novel was really well-written but felt a little boring at times. I still enjoyed my read but wish there were more elements to keep the reader enraptured.

I love this book and I love Catalina.
Taking place at Harvard/Boston/New York in 2010/2011, this is my new favorite niche genre. Academia and growing up in 2010. And Catalina does it so perfectly.
Catalina goes off on tangents, takes a wild ride through thoughts of Henry Kissinger and Teddy Roosevelt. Nepotism in the good and bad forms.
How undocumented people have to jump through hoops to live, especially kids who were brought over, grew up, and are trying to make something of themselves without proper resources. How can an undocumented person, who is studying at Harvard, also not be appreciated by Harvard? Harvard, the professors, and the students take Catalina for granted and treat her as beneath them since she doesn't have money, but they care deeply about the things they have discovered, the instruments, the tools. But don't actually care about the people. Society values things that can tell us about people, but not about the people themselves.
Catalina takes right after her grandfather, stubborn and both a little lost in their own worlds. Catalina can't handle being with Nathaniel (because he's an awful person) so throws herself out of the car. Her grandfather can't handle dealing with immigration and papers so he deports himself, betraying the family but also thinking it is what's best for all of them? They both need therapy.
This is my new favorite niche genre, 2010s college age growing up book. I completely devoured this book.

Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC.

This one has me a bit conflicted as far as ratings go. I thought the premise was really interesting - the story of Catalina, an undocumented student from Ecuador at Harvard in the 2010s. We follow Catalina through her last year in college and all of its messy, beautiful, heartbreaking-ness, compounded by the fact that she is unable to secure a future for herself due to her DREAMER status.

Catalina narrates the book as almost a stream of conscious. The plot often veers off into tangents and memories. Sometimes this annoyed me as a reader but it wasn't difficult to follow along. I guess I just like a little more structure to my books.

Would make a great book club choice. 3.5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Catalina is a Harvard student who is currently classified as a DREAMER. She moved to the States when she was young to live with her grandparents from Ecuador. There truly isn’t a plot to this book it’s fairly stream of consciousness and follows Catalina’s journey during her time at Harvard. I personally had a difficult time with this book. It just was written very immaturely to me. It mentioned important themes including deportation, immigration, the importance of relationships in our lives. But it never delved into anything specifically other than the culminating event that I won’t spoil. It just felt like it was reaching and then ended very abruptly. The pacing was off and I just really couldn’t get over the immaturity of the writing. Which could have been intentional however the main character herself had been through so much to make it seem like she was mature. This review is all over the place kinda like this book in my opinion.

Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC of Catalina.

The premise sounded interesting but it didn't work for me for the following:

1. The lack of a central story/plot

2. The stream of consciousness style of writing - Catalina bounces from topic to topic, discussing whatever her mind focuses on at that point

3. I didn't like Catalina's voice -she sounded too polished for a young woman, even if she is graduating from college.

it felt like the author wanted her to sound smarter than an illegal immigrant, as if to validate her worthiness as a human despite her illegal status.

I agreed with some of her observations on life, especially the #1 belief all children of immigrants must deal with.

Our parents/grandparents sacrificed to come to a foreign country with strange rituals and customs so their children can have a better life.

This means we're lucky to be here, illegal or not, and should do all we can to achieve the "American Dream." Yet, at what cost?

I understood Catalina's perspective yet there were some things I didn't agree on and I didn't relate to her. She didn't sound like a real person.

Catalina Ituralde is an undocumented Ecuadorian senior student at Harvard. Her parents tragically died in an accident in Ecuador, in which Catalina miraculously survives and whereafter she was taken in by her parental grandparents in Queens, New York City, who raised her. In the book, the reader follows a year in the life , and thoughts of Catalina. Because she is undocumented, life throws her a lot of difficult challenges. Being undocumented isn't much of a problem at Harvard, the college administration knows about it, but she keeps it a secret from her fellow students and friends. And with her her outsider and anthropologist eye she steps in the college subcultures, and posh parties, internships and secret societies, with curiosity but she also see the things that aren't good at all.
Her undocumented status will become a problem though after graduation, because she can not legally work in the United States. A romance start between her and a fellow anthropoly student who is very interested in Latin America, the country Catalina comes from but doesn't really knew at all.

Things even get more complicated when Catalina discovers multiple letters adressed to her grandfather send by the US immigration Customs Enforcement that her father didn't show up on a court hearing and is now facing deportation back to Ecuador. Can Cataline save him from deportation and find a place for herself in a world that is not for undocumented immigrants?

The book starts like a whirlwind in which you have to find a way into the disorganized chaos of Catalina's train of thoughts. Slowly on, the storyline is shaped more and more and in the last part the story of Catalina's life is written at it strongest and best shaped point, and the story gets more interesting and has more depth in that part, especially the tragic part which involves her undocumented grandfather. Catalina's own undocumented states doesn't get a real closing in the story if she will be able to stay or not in the USA for the foreseeable future, and what she is going to do with her life after college is also not very clear, so the story has some loose ends. I really liked most of this book though as it truly shows the challenges undocumented people like Catalina, who have no where else to go than live, in her case for example, with their grandparents. It truly makes your view on this sensitive topic bigger and hopefully, gains more understanding. Some points in this book, could have been developed better, but besides that I found this book entertaining, with an interesting main character and interesting topic.

Thanks so much to Random House Publishing Group and NetGalley for an ARC of Catalina in exchange for an honest review.

Rating: 5/5

This book is ridiculously good and it hooked me from the first sentence. It is written in such a way that it feels like the genuine stream of consciousness of someone with lived experience. Catalina is such a fun and inspiring read and I will definitely be recommending this to everyone I know.

This fictional novel is also a campus novel and well written. I highly recommend this and Karla Cornejo Villavicencio's work of non-fiction, The Undocumented Americans. I would also suggest listening to Villavicencio's podcast interviews.

I enjoyed reading this short novel about the titular Catalina navigating life after high school and discovering herself at college. Karla Cornejo Villavicencio is someone I will look out for in the future as I loved the way she wrote the character's motions and comments on life. Thanks to Netgalley and Random House for the eARC.

This is the story of Catalina Ituralde. An undocumented young woman who has been accepted at Harvard. Having left her homeland for more opportunities, she has been sent to live with her undocumented grandparents in Queens.

She has kept her secret close and now that she is a senior she feels unsettled. Is there any place for undocumented here? It would seem not.

What awaits her after graduation? Will she find love? Can she be honest with someone?

This is a beautifully written book. There was such a vulnerability in this book.


Netgalley/ RHPG One World/ June 18,2024

Loved The Undocumented Americans and loved this too. Karla Cornejo Villavicencio's voice is so sharp and singular. Cannot wait to see what she does next. Girlie could write a space opera sponsored by Pepsi and I'd be first in line to snap that shit up.

"Catalina" is told from the perspective of the eponymous protagonist Catalina Ituralde, an undocumented Hispanic student at Harvard. She's been raised by her parental grandparents after her parents passed away in a car accident, and shares her firsthand account growing up in the US at the turn of the 21st century.

There's so much packed into this deceptively short novel, and references to a number of semi-recent events in time (9/11, Obama's presidential campaign and election, the repeal of the DREAM Act, etc.) made Catalina's story feel far more relevant. She approaches contradictory and nonsensical standards in society in politics with a tongue-in-cheek, dry humor - a way to lessen the blow of on some of the heavier and emotional topics that her story traverses. Personally though, the writing style and storyline progression felt a little too disorganized and chaotic and came off more as a stream of consciousness ramble and there were admittedly points where I grew frustrated with or disagreed with Catalina's perspective or actions.

Publishing July 23, 2024

It’s hard to go into this book and not draw parallels to “The Idiot” by Elif Batuman, but somehow I feel more strongly drawn to Catalina. It’s wild how a book can be both funny and terribly sad. Catalina deals with feelings of ostracism, sadness, perfectionism, and loneliness. We meet her in her senior year at Harvard, and quickly learn that she is undocumented and is at a loss what she will do once she graduates (and hopes that DREAM passes). Sometimes she does things that are off-kilter, but that makes her feel more real and multi-dimensional.

Thank you to the author and publisher for providing an advanced copy through Netgalley.

I don't throw around this phrase lightly, but this was "pure vibes."
It will undoubtedly get compared to The Idiot, even though they are two completely different stories, voices, and ideas. Such a comparison would do this story and the writing justice, though. It is frenetic and scattered in a brilliant a way that I don't think I've seen achieved before.
Circling back to vibes, some of them were insufficient for me, and it was hard to stay motivated to read this thing when I knew it was going to meander at any second. As much as I enjoyed Villavicencio's characterizations (funny and short!) I felt the descriptions of places and events was much less concrete or helpful. Part of the campus novel/bildungsroman's appeal is seeing the world through naive eyes, and this vision seemed incomplete. Catalina is clearly very smart, so why doesn't she have a bit more commentary about things?
On the whole, the vibes were wide-roving and cool. I look forward to reading more of Villavicencio's badass writing!
Huge thanks to NetGalley for the ARC

Unfortunately not really my style, though I thought the themes were (depressingly) gripping. While I liked the character, I couldn't really relate to her as well as I would have liked -- again a style issue.

I am not sure quite what to make about this book. It is about an undocumented young woman who gets accepted to Harvard and the reality of her status hitting her as she begins to approach graduation. BUT it is sort of a too hip first-person narrative that in some ways undermined my connection to the character in a Sloane Crossley kind of way. Intriguing, but not sure I am recommending -- noting shout outs to Jonathan Franzen and Selena Gomex in the afterward!

I felt it was an okay read but I felt I couldn’t connect with characters as much as you wanted to but overall a good book about the topic she was writing about

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for a review.

Captivating from the start, but the writing style is not for me.
I did enjoy a lot of the themes the author explored (grief, perfectionism, love, loneliness...)and there was a lot of times where I connected to the character and what she was experiencing but its easy to get lost in the plot.
It is an interesting read though. The immigrant struggle was very well portrayed though.

This was such an interesting story, and I really enjoyed it! I feel like my biggest complaint is that I wish the book was a little bit longer because I feel like there was so much more story to tell!

A wonderful debut novel. Thanks for the review copy. Very gripping with the vulnerability. This was a breath of fresh air.