Colombia

Colombia, a country located in the northwest corner of South America, is the homeland of Elena, Mauro, and Karina, and one of the primary settings of the novel. Though Talia is born in the U.S., she is sent back to Colombia as a baby to be raised by her grandmother. In the present-day chapters from her perspective, Talia is traveling from the reformatory in Santander, south to the capital city of Bogotá.

The author refers frequently to Colombia's long history of political upheaval and corruption, drug trafficking, and violence. Mauro notes that it is "a country of not second but hundredth chances for the chosen; a nation of amnesiacs where narcotraficantes become senators and senators become narcotraficantes, killers become presidents and presidents become killers" (11). There are references to assassinations and bombings that kill thousands of civilians, along with "cartels, army, narco-guerrillas, and paramilitaries each trying to take...