No Place to Bury the Dead by Karina Sainz Borgo is a story centered on two women, Angustias Romero and Visitacion Salazar who are fighting to protect a cemetary in a town called Mezquitte. The book details a bleak and brutal existance in a bleak and brutal world created by the author. The desperation of Angustias to find a burial place, and then to protect that cemetary is palpable. The cemetary is valuable to men who have other uses for it and for politicians to leverage to gain more money and power. The extreme poverty and depravation of the migrants in this story fleeing a plague that affects memory is tragic . . . hopeless. The politicians, are not well defined characters, just one dimensional bad guys doing what bad politicians do. The writing is at times beautiful. The chapters are short, which usually helps with the pacing, but in this case it is quite slow. It starts slow, it gets slower, and then it speeds up towards the end. The two women are well defined and good characters, but the remaining characters get short shrift and are one dimensional. Good or bad. I give this book 3 stars. Thank you to #netgalley and Harper Via for my e-arc. This book comes out tomorrow, Tuesday, December 10, 2024.

No Place to Bury the Dead by Karina Sainz Borgo is a harrowing tale of displacement and survival. Set in an unnamed Latin American country grappling with an epidemic of amnesia, the story follows Angustias Romero, a mother fleeing her hometown with her husband and two children. Their journey quickly turns tragic when both children die, forcing Angustias to carry their bodies while searching for a place to bury them. Along the way, she and her husband face a cascade of hardships: robbery, the theft of their documents, and the brutal realities of life on the road alongside thousands of other refugees.

Eventually, in a small border town, Angustias encounters Visitación Salazar, a local woman who helps her bury her children. Together, the two women begin aiding refugees while contending with the corruption, exploitation, and gang intimidation that plague the region.

It’s clear that Sainz Borgo seeks to shine a light on the ongoing refugee crisis, drawing stark parallels between the fictional amnesia epidemic and the very real struggles faced by migrants fleeing to the U.S.-Mexico border. The novel offers moments of insight into the hardships of displacement, the resilience of those who endure it, and the systemic forces that keep them marginalized.

However, while the book’s premise is poignant and timely, it ultimately fell short for me. The narrative’s complexity felt undermined by the simplicity of its characters and moral framework. The people inhabiting this world often came across as either wholly good or wholly bad, leaving little room for the nuanced morality that can make a story truly gripping. Additionally, while the amnesia epidemic is an intriguing concept, it functions more as a plot device than a fully developed element of the story, which left me feeling slightly disappointed.

While I admire the book’s ambition and its attempt to give voice to the displaced and disenfranchised, I found the execution lacking the emotional depth and nuance I was hoping for. That said, for readers drawn to stories of survival and migration, this novel offers a powerful reminder of the challenges refugees face and the humanity that persists even in the face of unimaginable loss.

Thank you to Harper Via and Netgalley for the e-arc!! This is my second book read by the author. I thought the beginning was great. I loved the world-building and the characters but unfortunately about halfway through the story, I got a bit lost. I still finished the book because I really wanted to know what happened. There was also an animal abuse scene that is really bad. I’m used to dark books but this scene was really extreme.

3.5 stars. This story felt very timeless, I often had to remind myself that it takes place in 2019 since I feel the way it was written it could've taken place anytime. Following a woman as she fleas plague, grieves the loss of her family, and finds purpose is an inspiring premise. I don't think this story ended up inspiring, but it was an interesting saga of organized crime and the people who will go against them to care for the community.

This was so creepy but great. I love translated fiction so much and felt that the translation on this was extremely well done. Also the cover is amazing tbh.

An incredibly powerful novel that follows Angustias Romero as she, along with her husband and newborn twins, escape from their country, which has succumbed to a plague sweeping much of the world. As they migrate north, her twins die with nowhere for her to bury her children. Angustias keeps her twins close to her and is finally able to bury her sons in Mezquite at a cemetery known as The Third Country run by Visitación Salazar. Angustias' husband cannot understand her grief, and the two separate. Angustias begs to stay in the Third Country and assists Salazar in her mission to bury all who need it.

No Place to Bury the Dead was captivating - all of the characters within the novel feel so tangible, and all the while bringing in parallels to current crises in Latin America around migration and especially government corruption. The perspectives across the novel include Angustias, along with many of the other characters, leading to a full world that absolutely engrosses you.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperVia for the advanced copy.

I was on the fence about getting this arc, since the cover gave off horror vibes and it has been tagged as horror on Goodreads, and I'm not usually a horror fan. I'm glad I did read this one though. I am not sure how anyone would shelve this book in horror, really. This novel sits comfortably in literary fiction, with a mysterious plague, clearly a fiction version of Covid, that combines with drought, flooding, and marauding bands of violent criminals to make a steady supply of internal refugees, including a woman and her husband and their two young sons. When their sons die and they are faced with mass unmarked body disposal as the only state sanctioned end for their boys, the woman sets off to find somewhere to bury her sons with dignity. When she finds someone willing to bury the boys illegally, she lands herself in a complicated tangle that will change the pattern of her life in unexpected ways.
I really enjoyed this book and will definitely recommend it. I do wish though that it had a cover that fit the aesthetics of the story a bit better.

Sainz Borgo's debut novel, "It Would Be Night in Caracas," was a tough act to follow, yet she does so masterfully (through Elizabeth Breyer's scintillating translation) with "No Place to Bury the Dead." Stunning and stark: a real achievement.

No Place to Bury the Dead is a pretty harrowing journey of a mother searching for a safe place to bury her two boys. A plague has come leaving death and the infected in it's wake. As the story unfolds, the reader will become immersed in the character's immediate culture. The dealings of every day people in the community that was and is still surviving. The religious elements surrounding death and dying. Being a reader of the translation, this was so enriching to the overall tone and, obviously, understanding. The story doesn't just end when our main character finally finds a resting place for her children, she gets very involved with the woman running the burial show. Visitacion is an incredibly fierce character. The most intriguing aspect of this story, to me, was her history leading up to how she became the person to go to for burials. I'm partial due to my anthropology degree, but her interactions and interpretations of the process with revering the dead was truly amazing.

The format, I address now, is where my rating was ultimately affected. The chapters are pretty short, which is fine for speedy readers. Some felt kind of untidy. The storyline was fairly neat, except I felt like we reached a confetti style soap opera of dialogue and interactions. This left me kind of squirrely and it made the desire to finish it quicker slow a great deal.

My favorite passages/quotes:

The longer my lungs emptied, the greater my rage: at the plague, at Salverio, at God, and at these men who wouldn't let me pass. 21%

"The day my mother died, I opened her up without shedding a tear....'Mother, if you gave birth to me, and made me as strong as I am, then why should somebody else prepare you for the grave?..."39%

A really bleak read. I’m always rooting for women in impossible circumstances, but I’m not clear what the brutality of the text is supposed to do here aside from shock and depress.

Not the book for me, but might be for you if you can wade through several chapters of a grieving parent housing their dead babies’ corpses in a shoebox.

No, seriously. That’s just the tip of the trauma-berg.

I felt a major disconnect throughout the majority of this novel. That’s such a shame because the synopsis led me to believe No Place to Bury the Dead was the kind of book that would ignite a spark within my brain. I thought it started out with an alluring emotional provocation, but eventually it released me from its grip. I struggled to finish it, but I did see it through, and I will say that I was astonished by the ending. I wish the content in between could have captivated me as much as the outer layers did.

I think, at the very least, it does capture an interesting cultural and political climate, allowing for a unique experience for the reader. Perhaps my overall disinterest won’t be felt by others, and they‘ll discover the power that I had hoped to encounter here.

I am immensely grateful to HarperVia and NetGalley for my copy. All opinions are my own.

Thank you net galley and Harpervia for this arc in exchange for my honest review.

This is so different then what I normally choose to read. I really
Like the setting and getting an insight into migrants lives. The pacing at times was slow but over followed a good pace.

This was a great tell of 2 strong women and how they handled all the hardships life through at them.

A dystopian read that will have your wheels turning on the paths people cross. The devastation of the characters is told in a poetic way. The author depicts breathtaking scenes filled with suffering and strife. The characters will captivate you.

Read if you like stories of struggle.

I was lucky enough to win a copy of NO PLACE TO BURY THE DEAD by Karina Sainz Borgo in a Shelf Awareness giveaway. Thank you for the early look, and have a safe holiday season!

Bad men. Strong women. Between the dead and the undead.

More of a mini-series than a novel based on the rush of dialogue and short chapters that equate to better teleplay movements than the novel.

As a novel, the scaffolding between chapters Is rigid. Gives no sense of ground to really sit with the story.

Aside from this, an entertaining story that sings high with drama and violence that I particularly find better explored in say Melchor or Mariana Enriquez’s novels. It was perfect to book-end my scary reads as we move from October to November.

One thing about me, I love some translated horror. And nothing says "horror" quite like grief and desperation. This story is in parts apocalyptic, dystopian, and also, powerful. Set in a fictional Latin American location (El Tercer Pais), Angustias & Visitacion are strong women navigating a world ravaged by a plague that has caused people to migrate while also robbing the infected of their memories. I never like to give too much plot so that is all I will share. Thank you to NetGalley and HarperVia for the ARC. Check this one out when it publishes December 10, 2024.

This book did not keep me engaged and i think had some issues with the translation. I still gave it a three because the premise was initially interesting

wow, this book was great. It was an emotional ride and gave the feelings for melancholia and dread. If you're in a headspace for depressing reads, this is a great one to pick up.

Ten percent into this book I was telling everyone this was going to be a five star read for me. It started out really great. You really feel the pressure of this plague.

It did start to drift off some and i had trouble understanding where it was going. But I think overall this is a good horror story that people are going to love!!

In 2024, I've been working to read more books that have been translated. There's an author I follow, and he's constantly sharing books that were written by women and translated into English. I love the idea because it opens the world up to the reader in a new and different way. I'm also finding a lot of authors who I've never heard of before. No Place to Bury the Dead both fit the category of a work in translation and a woman author.

The book starts with a mass migration following a disease that causes memory loss. Angustias and her husband leave their home following the many others leaving their home towns , carrying their two infant boys with them. On their journey, their sons die, leaving Angustias obviously grief stricken. While grief stricken, Angustias is directed to Visitación, a woman who will make sure her children have a respectful and decent burial in the midst of sorrow and the poverty experienced in Mezquite, the town they've found themselves in. Abandoned by her husband, Angustias finds a path working and apprenticing with Visitación. Visitación's very existence as a female guardian of the dead and the cemetery has set her against very powerful people in the community, and we see the repercussions of this play out throughout the novel.

I'm not going to go too much more into the plot, but wanted to talk about the book and the context it takes shape in. This book very well could be a true story based on the experiences it describes. Following government upheaval in Central and South America, thousands of people in real life have found themselves making the difficult choice to stay or make a difficult and risky journey. Studying global migration was a core part of my Master's degree, and Sainz Borgo's book in a short impactful way captures the essence of what has historically and currently pushed people to cross violent rivers, mountains, and deserts to find a better life. The politics of what has happened following the destabilizing of central governments (usually due to American interference), is described eloquently in such a short novel. I had to rate this 5/5 because of the way the author was able to capture the essence of what regular families are experiencing daily. I could go on for quite some time about how important stories like this are, and their resonance with the real world. People may think some of this fantastical... but in the real lived experiences of migrants, this story is all too common whether it's here in the U.S., the EU, or anywhere else people are forced to try and find a better life elsewhere.

Please be advised I received an Advance Readers Copy (ARC) from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.