The Anthill

I need to put this review into context, I live in Colombia and have been a constant observer of what is going on, the politics, conflict, society, travel and more and I came to the Anthill with high expectations. Pachico does not only deliver, she provides us with one of the most insightful views on a search for identity of the protagonist and the city of Medellin itself. There may be sections which come across as too heavy on the contemporary colombia side of things, but if you possess any background knowledge of the country, you’ll be fine. I am still thinking about how Carolina the protagonist has her stomach turned so severely when a group of visitors to the city mention that they are going to the “Escobar theme park,” that she vomits on the street.

Tooka While to get going, but once it did it was a quick read. Not sure I fully understand the ending though..?

First, this novel is a commentary on what Columbia was and has become. Matty (who is a raging douchebag) runs a sort of day-care community center for underprivileged children called The Anthill. Lina decides to drop her dissertation work to move to Columbia and volunteer at The Anthill. She lived with Matty as a child, and doesn’t really remember much about their childhood, but feels the need to look him up for an unexplained reason. As an aside, having completed a dissertation, I can sympathize with wanting to run away. Apparently, Lina plagiarized, so she was doubly screwed.

Lina reminisces about growing up there, how Matty came to live with her family, etc. There are some supernatural aspects but they aren’t explained or the focus of any storylines. They seem to be dropped in randomly. Tbis is most irritation because it was listed as “horror” in audible. It is not. There are some strange goings on, but no one really mentions them or acknowledges them. The focus is Lina and Matty acting weird and lamenting the changes in Columbia that have made it safer but it is somehow bad that death squads aren’t marching down the street. Ok then.

There also seems to be time jumps of 1000’s of years. Whatever. I got the feeling this was a novel that critics will fawn over because of the social commentary, but the story itself is meaningless.

If there were issues with the characters, they weren’t resolved. I am somewhat clueless as to what the point was. It was like large sections of the story were missing.

It is well-written, but, for my taste, a little to abstract and unexplained. It isn’t unusual for Lina to randomly throw up without explanation. I don’t have a good sense of why Lina really went there, what she wants, and what her motives were with Matty. Nothing happens or gets resolved.

I see all the positive reviews, but I’m not certain the book was read completely by the reviewers. They saw the social commentary and threw 5 stars up.

3.5 stars

Reading this book was a visceral experience for me. It’s beautifully written, and the imagery and pain are so powerful. For me, both were so intense that found myself both anxious and nauseous at time while reading.

Pachico explores childhood trauma in a way that feels incredibly realistic. Though the trauma does not belong to the reader, it’s easy to react as if it does. We’re so far inside of Lina’s head, uncertainty, hallucinatory moments, memories, and nail ripping, that it feels almost too connecting at times.

It’s hard for me to rate this novel because I see a great deal of artistic value in its construction, themes, and general concept, but I struggled so much while reading it. Perhaps that last fact makes this work even more compelling and fulfilling of its purpose. On the other hand, there were aspects of this work – including but not limited to every discussion of child abuse, rape, and torture as well as every second describing fingernails – that resulted in a lot of emotional trials for me.

A beautiful book in theory but an incredibly gut wrenching read personally.

This is a tough book to review. It was also a tough book to read. It was filled with trauma, anger, tragedy, and more anger. It was a visceral experience and I had to put it down more than once to catch my breath.

This book was realistic but at the same time, nearly an imagined experience when strange things began to happen. I was personally hoping for a bit of magical realism but that never quite happened.

I’m still glad I read this book – just be prepared for raw writing that never lets the reader forget what childhood trauma and secrets will do to a person when they begin searching for the truth.

I am giving this book 3.5 stars because of the subject matter and the limited number of people I would feel good about recommending it to.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a gifted copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

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