Point of View

The novel is narrated primarily in third-person omniscient point-of-view, with chapters alternating between the perspectives of Elena, Mauro, and their 15-year-old daughter Talia. Though narrated in past tense like the rest of the novel, Talia's chapters take place predominantly in the present-day timeline, with a few flashbacks to recent events, such as Perla's death. As she makes her way from the reformatory to Bogotá, Talia contemplates the fractured sense of identity she feels as a result of her family separation and being born in America but raised in Colombia. Elena and Mauro have very different experiences as Colombian immigrants to the United States. They feel like outsiders because of the way they are viewed and treated by the U.S. government and other Americans as undocumented immigrants. After Mauro is deported, their perspectives demonstrate the effect such an event has on a family. Separated from...