I just simply adored this novel. This book is full of rich culture, drama, passion, angst, humour and family it was hard not to fall in love with it.

There's a lot going on in the book. It looks into identity, family, love, culture and many other things. It's simply not just a book about romance. This novel shows so much depth and poignancy.

And the use of language in the novel was incredible! I loved how it fully immersed the different cultures with the use of language.

The novel was funny too! There were moments where my sides hurt from laughing. I loved how chaotic this family was.

One thing that hit me the most was the theme of family; of loyalty. I felt connected to this family and I felt their love for one another too. It was beautiful.

And it didn't lack drama, either! The depth of emotion in this novel astounded me. I couldn't imagine being in this family's shoes, but I felt the pain with all the challenged that was given to them.

This book has to be one of my favourites of this year. I loved the feeling of love in this novel, the family's shenanigans kept me laughing, and I made me feel when it got to the more painful parts of the novel. It's a book that would most definitely be recommended by me for everybody to read.

Highly recommended!

When Yola’s family barbecue is crashed by a gangster named Ugly, they discover that they have inherited the huge debt of their recently deceased Aunt and that they will be paying it back by taking in in the fellow illegal immigrants that Ugly has transported into the country. To make matters even more complicated, Yola feels an instant spark with Ugly’s right hand man, the polite, cultured and terrifying Romàn.
‘One Year of Ugly’ is a wild, chaotic, hilarious romp of a novel. The Palacios’ instantly became one of my favourite fictional families, from Yola’s long suffering dad Hector to her philandering uncle Mauricio, to crazy aunt Milagros and the busty Irish twins Ava and Alejandra. Yola is a charming, wry, self deprecating and ballsy heroine whose romance with Romàn feels totally authentic and never overpowers the story.
Caroline Mackenzie has a wonderful way with words, and she writes with great humour and heart. I was impressed that no matter how wild the storyline became it felt as though she had a real hold on things, and it never became so wild as to be silly.
‘One Year of Ugly’ is one of the best books I have read in a long time, and certainly the best debut. Funny and gutsy and poignant, I could have read hundreds more pages about the Palacios. Many thanks to HarperCollins UK and NetGalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Clearly, I have a problem. I just do not see this book as “devastatingly funny, nor blisteringly fresh story of family, first love and finding home”. If I unpick that statement a bit, I can see it is in fact a fresh story – because I have never read anything like this. True, it is about family, first love and finding home – but for me that just about covers it.

If you find the description of a drunk man, falling all over the place and farting funny OK. If you find humour in the fate of illegal immigrants forced to flee Venezuela to the ‘safety’ of Trinidad, OK. If you find the subjugation of the family and coercing them to slave for the criminals humorous, so be it. Sorry not for me.

If you take all the ‘humour’ away then it is something else. It is shocking inasmuch as the treatment of the Venezuelans, and treatment of illegal immigrants and those living in the margins is always shocking. More shocking is my total ignorance of these facts – the way that we live in our sheltered lives, focusing on our own worlds, no matter how ‘aware’ we think we are.

What is also revealed is the spirit of the individual, the spirit of the family, the life-affirming drive to make the best of it: hope, survive, live and love.

At first, I just didn’t get the book; didn’t get it – didn’t like it. Slowly I became intrigued by Yolla and by extension the family. Worried about ‘Ugly’ and the regime he enforced and the lack of support or control on the lives of the Palacio family.

A comedy it’s not (for me anyway), an insight – definetly.

Thank you to the author, publishers and NetGalley for providing an ARC via my Kindle in return for an honest review.

Utterly hilarious in a dark humour way; this is the tale of the Palacios family, originally from Venezuela, now living as illegals in Trinidad. When Yola Palacios’ Aunt Celia suddenly dies the whole family find their world upended. It transpires that Celia had a big and ugly secret, she was seriously in debt to a local gangster, going by the name of Ugly. The family have no money to be able to pay him off, so they have to work for him until the debt is cleared. This work includes housing other illegals and working in a gentlemen’s night club. Ugly is mistrustful of the family and puts the dangerous, but extremely attractive, Roman in charge of keeping a close eye on the family. Yola is smitten but also conscious of the fact he is one of the bad guys.

There is a delightful cast of vivid characters, ranging from the philandering brother and the drunken uncle to the prim and proper aunt who morphs into a cigarette smoking, gun toting vigilante. The story is told with great wit and powerful humour and the events the characters get caught up in are devastatingly funny.

It might seem odd to say that a story about illegal immigrants who have had to flee their home country and are now living with the fear of deportation is comic but as the author herself says ‘I wrote the book as a comedic novel because there is nothing that makes even the heaviest subjects more accessible than humour.'

I think this is going to be one of the books of 2020.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Collins for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Definitely not my usual romance story but I enjoyed it so much for so many different reasons.
The mixture of characters is something that I definitely didn’t expect and the language within was very different in the meaning that it felt more like I was there with the family and the characters and of course their banter and arguments are very colourful.
The family drama and the dynamic between all of them is very well done by the author in my opinion and it really made me wanting to read more and to see where everything goes. Add in the dead aunt and her journals and stories, this was an interesting book overall.
It definitely has triggers for many people but as in real life, these things are happening and we have to take them as they come.

Thanks to HarperCollins UK and NetGalley for the Advance Review Copy in exchange for an honest review.

I am usually allergic to describing any book as “sexy” but...this book is sexy. It’s also funny, charming and has a big dollop of (mostly light-hearted) family drama stirred in too.

The Palacios family, undocumented immigrants from Venezuela, find themselves beholden to “Ugly”, a local crime lord who was owed money by the family’s recently deceased Aunt Celia. Ugly assigns Roman, one of his employees, to keep watch on the family whilst they work away the inherited debt.

Sparks soon fly between Roman and Yola, the main character of the story. Yola, a 24-year-old writer had a close relationship with Aunt Celia and the story is interspersed with Celia’s memoirs throughout. I didn’t enjoy these flashbacks as much as the main plot, but they were entertaining enough.

The book features a colourful cast of diverse characters, Aunt Milagros in particular was a total hoot and there are some real laugh out loud moments throughout the story. Some of the events the family are forced to endure would be traumatic in reality but the author manages to portray these with a sense of humour whilst not losing sight of the serious point she is trying to make.

The main romance is spicy and fun, and I liked the witty banter between Roman and Yola as well as some of the more intense moments. They were more than a match for one another, and it was refreshing to see a heroine in a Romance themed novel who didn’t take any crap from her love interest. I’ve got a bit of a weakness for the bodyguard/assassin/protector type dynamic so I was already sold on the relationship dynamic.

The author’s portrait of a Venezuelan immigrant family and the love and warmth (and bickering!) between them was portrayed perfectly and the characterisation was a cut above what I might expect in other similar books. Sure, there were some trope-y parts but I can forgive that when everything was so fun.

A fantastically timely tale of immigration and family. It's a heavy topic, but the humour in this book cuts through this well.

The Palacios family are Venezuelan illegal immigrants enjoying a family-centred happy and successful life in Trinidad. That is until Ugly introduces himself to them after the death of Aunt Celia. The latter has borrowed money off self-styled gangster Ugly and he is determined that the Palacios will re-pay their debt.
Part of the deal is for them to house fellow Venezuelans as they enter the country for as long as Ugly commands. Later, they are instructed to work in his ‘upmarket’ strip club several nights a week as well. Understandably, the family are very upset but what can they do against such a powerful and unscrupulous man?
Told through the eyes of one of the daughters, Yola, a translator and promising writer, we are given an often hilarious picture of immigrant life. She is feisty, clever and ambitious. However, she has one fatal weakness – Roman, Ugly’s right-hand man. How can she even think of a liaison?
Caroline Mackenzie’s first novel is impressive. Both an important portrayal of difficulties facing the Venezuelans in Trinidad and, by implication, anyone who is displaced, and a social comedy exposing all the highs and lows of living in an extended family, ‘One Year of Ugly’ is certainly worth reading. Her characters remain with the reader long after the final page and it is no surprise that the novel has been optioned for television. More problematic might be recreating the unusual and effective comedic tone on screen combined with the serious issues that all exploited people face, something that Mackenzie does so well on paper.
My thanks to NetGalley and Harper Collins UK, The Borough Press for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

This was not what I expected but in the best possible way. It deals with illegal immigrants living under the radar but does so through a vivid cast of characters and wicked humour. At ties laugh out loud funny, at others poignant, this is an excellent contemporary novel.

A different look at refugees.
I didn’t expect to like this book as much as I did, and I really didn’t expect to laugh as much. It’s not a particularly funny subject, when you consider that it’s about Venezuelan refugees in Trinidad. Honestly, I didn’t know that there WERE Venezuelan refugees in Trinidad. The whole Palacio family have fled Venezuela and it’s corrupt regime, and have started a new life in Trinidad as refugees. The work they do is under the radar of the authorities. When their matriarch, Aunt Celia, suddenly dies, a rather flamboyant character, Ugly, turns up and demands his money. This is the point where they find out that they’re actually illegal refugees, and that Aunt Celia hadn’t actually secured them any legitimate, legal rights to be there. So they’re now at the mercy of Ugly. He demands that they work off the debts that Celia incurred, by taking in fellow refugees as they pass through to nw lives in Trinidad. He leaves them under no misapprehension that if they don’t comply to his wishes, violence will follow.

There is a real dark humour throughout this book. Parts are genuinely funny, but there are other parts, mainly those involving Ugly, which are really menacing. This isn’t a fluffy ‘everything works out for the best’ type of story, and I think it’s really good that Mackenzie is highlighting something that a lot of us know nothing about. It seems universal that no matter where a refugee comes from, that their lives are constantly in danger and that they are preyed upon by the unscrupulous. I’ve read a couple of books about refugees that broke my heart, and while I did feel sympathy for the characters in this book, I appreciated the humour - after all, some people do deal with trauma with humour.

I was really pleasantly surprised by this book, and yes, I would recommend it. I’m looking forward to seeing what the author will write about next.

I loved Yola and her family and I'm so pleased that Caroline's aim of making the novel dark but humorous really worked; it made it all feel a lot more true-to-life, without making the very serious subject feel trivial at all. . The relationship between Yola and Roman also felt very real.

Aunt Celia's voice came across really strongly as well, albeit only in her diaries.

This novel gripped me from the start and held my attention all of the way through. In places it's laugh-out-loud funny - highly recommended.

I liked the fact that this book showcased the perspective of a different culture and part of the world experiencing migration. However, the style was slightly frivolous and I couldn't get into it properly, took me quite a long time to read whereas I usually speed through books, especially humorous ones.

One Year Of Ugly by Caroline Mackenzie tells the story of a family that escaped from Maduro's Venezuela to begin a new life in Trinidad. The Palacios family were living moderately within the confines of what their status afforded them. This all changed with a visit from Ugly, a local crime lord who had secured fraudulent residency permits for some members of the family. It turns out that a deceased member of the family, Aunt Celia, was indebted to Ugly. The entire family has to work off the six hundred thousand Trinidadian dollars in the manner dictated by Ugly. The challenges and how they navigate them are told from the perspective of Yola Palacios, an aspiring author whose situation is compromised when she falls in love with one of Ugly's men. The poignancy of the story is punctuated by hilarious events in the daily existence of the characters that make up the Palacios family. This story whilst dealing with the plight of fleeing refugees manages to invoke empathy and hope in its execution. Forbidden love, alcoholism, philandering, politics are all thrown in to make the book engaging until the last page.

Absolutely adored this book! Funny, punchy and also very poignant. I am going to be recommending it to everyone I know.

It took a while to get into the story but boy am I glad I persevered . I hadn’t realised that there were Venezuelan illegal immigrants living under the radar of the authorities in Trinidad . The Palacios family were doing just that when Aunt Celia died and left them with a debt to Ugly, a people trafficker Caroline Mackenzie manages to highlight the plight of refugees with a dose of realism coupled with humour At times hilarious ,but with a sinister undertone , the story follows their adventures as they try to pay off the debt and discover more about themselves in the process There are some great characters Yola ,the daughter of the family who was close to her deceased Aunt , another Aunt who surprises us all , Roman , the dangerously attractive henchmen . There are scenes of domestic drudgery, strip clubs ,corrupt politicians and nuns! The story will open your eyes to a different world and entertain you .I can’t wait to read her next book

This was a fascinating story about a period in history of which I have very little previous knowledge. The suffering that the families went through was really bad. The characters were very varied and believable. Very sad in parts but a conclusion which gives some hope for the future.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire! Fleeing Venezuela to start a new life in Trinidad starts off tragically with a death and then being told they are liable for a huge debt. It is quite difficult to get into the book but I encourage you to persevere.

I enjoyed this book, while it dealt with a heavy issue it was able to find some light, comedy, and romance in this story. I was intrigued by the setting in Trinidad and was not familiar with the influx of Venezuelans in the country, so this provided an interesting perspective. Yola the central character was probably my least favorite character, as she has this sense of being better than everyone else and wallows in self-pity too many times in the story. Her family members were all entertaining and it was a great way to explore an issue of illegal immigration from a middle-class family and how life still continues even in the midst of unrest.

This is one of the funniest book I read in some time and I found it engrossing and entertaining.
The author is a talented storyteller and I loved the description of the family and how she developed the plot.
I loved the style of writing, the colourful and well thought characters, and the well crafted characters.
I look forward to reading other stories by this author.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

I loved this book, it was just everything I hoped for and more when I read the synopsis. It’s unique, quirky and absorbing, brilliant! I thought the humour used was perfect in dealing with important messages about immigration, freedom and the situation the world and humans are in at the moment. It highlights the real important things in life love, family and humanity. Thoroughly recommended and hopefully will be highly recognised for the brilliant book it is.you need to read this !

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for a free copy for an honest opinion