"After the enchantment of life in a new county dwindles, a particular pain awaits. Emigration was a peeling away of the skin. An undoing. You wake each morning and forget where you are, who you are, and when the world outside shows you your reflection, it's ugly and distorted; you've become a scorned, unwanted creature."

A Dreamer tells the story of her family's migration from Colombia to the United States, her father's deportation, and the decades-long separation her family endured while struggling to reunite.

Seamlessly weaving between the youngest, U.S.-born daughter's experience coming up in Bogotá with her father and an omniscient narrator detailing how the parents' poverty spurred their decision to overstay their U.S. visas and make a life in the States, Engel touched on a multitude of issues surrounding modern-day immigration. Tender and essential, this book made me cry more than a few times.

I find the more complex the story, the better it responds to simple and efficient writing. Engel's direct prose was an astoundingly effective vehicle to convey this family's hardship and fear. And strength.

Fear that the smallest slip-up will trigger deportation, worry of what will happen to the U.S. born children if both parents are sent back, the reality of what it was like for a family of five to bounce from city to city searching for a safe place to earn income, the consequences of never being able to go home again or face losing all they have worked to secure.

Their inability to seek justice when crimes were committed against them, of which there were many, boiled my blood. The ease with which these crimes were perpetuated, the racism piled on, the judgment so easily conveyed, was infuriating to read about. While my mind already knew, this book opened my heart to the true inhumanity that exists when a wholly present person is shoved into the category of "undocumented" and given less-than-human status.

Fearless and void of self-pity, I hope Engel wins all the awards in 2021.