Where We Come From is a richly descriptive and emotionally wrenching novel. This story about the horrors of immigration is beautifully written. The story revolves around twelve-year old Orly and his god mother Nina. Nina has been harboring immigrants traveling from Mexico to the United States in an abandoned house.
About third way through the novel this hits the reader :Orly felt as if everything he had inside him, his heart and lungs and liver and kidneys and stomach, was slipping from his body, down his legs and onto the floor mat where he’d just dropped his IPad. After reading that line, I became enamored with the novel and glided to the satisfying poignant ending.
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I thought it was really well-written and I'm surprised it isn't more popular. The beginning was definitely a bit slow and I also think there could have been a lot more of an emotional punch, but I still really liked it. You don't need to know Spanish/understand everything it says to get the book but it helped to know the language. ( )

4.5****

The setting is Brownsville, Texas, a border town with a mean reputation as a haven for human traffickers and drug runners. Some of the reputation is based in fact. But it’s also a community of hard-working, middle-class people who want nothing but a safe home for their children, decent schools, good roads, a thriving business district and reliable city services. Cásares focuses on one such family.

Nina is the only daughter, and now in her early 60s finds herself living with her invalid mother, having been forced by her older brothers (who are all married with families of their own) to abandon her teaching career and her own house to “do her duty as the only girl.” When her maid asks for a favor, Nina agrees. A small pink house at the back of their property was to be a rental property, but it’s empty, and Rumalda wonders if her sister-in-law and niece could stay there for a day or two. Nina agrees and becomes ensnared in a group of human smugglers. When her 13-year-old godson comes for an extended visit, she’s in a panic lest he discover her secret.

I really enjoyed this exploration of a complex issue. There are multiple layers to the novel and much fodder for discussion, from the many instances of mother/child relationships in all their variety and nuance, to the vivid descriptions of a landscape that is very familiar to me, to the bursts of humor, to the fear of discovery, to the loneliness each of them suffers, and to the fanciful flight of parrots who cross the man-made border at will. (Yes, the river is natural, but it’s man who made it a border between nations.)

I had the pleasure to participating in an author event via Zoom courtesy of my local independent book store. That discussion made me appreciate the novel even more. ( )

This novel demands a level of patience to be fully appreciated. The author lingers over minor characters and their stories even when these aren't directly significant to the main story. I would say the novel was understated to a fault, but as I persevered, the understatement magically began to feel both revelatory and heartbreaking. It's an ensemble story, told from many points of view, where even the most tangential characters get to tell their tales, and where the storytelling style itself reflects the individuality and worthiness of each human being.
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A beautifully written study of a quietly troubled family living on the U.S.-Mexico border who unwittingly get caught up in a migrant smuggling network. Oscar Cásares' prose rewards careful reading, but the novel's ending, while poignant, could have packed a little more punch. ( )