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Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Feb 2023, 320 pages
Paperback:
Mar 2024, 320 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Elisabeth Cook
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A Country You Can Leave by Asale Angel-Ajani is narrated by Lara, a Black, biracial 16-year-old navigating an uneasy relationship with her Russian immigrant mother Yevgenia in early-2000s California. Lara seems, at least at first, to act more as a lens for others' actions and experiences than her own. Her relatively nondescript life is the vantage point from which we view the exuberant chaos of those around her as she approaches adulthood and develops a deeper understanding of her mother and the world.
Yevgenia is a whirlwind of self-important and attention-seeking, if extremely entertaining, behavior. Throughout a largely nomadic, working-class existence, she has managed many affairs and romances, including with Lara's father, a Cuban man Lara has never met, as well as a staggering amount of self-study. Yevgenia knows five languages that she toggles between as she revisits her ...
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