Although this debut novel is inspired by the author’s personal experiences (as noted in an afterword), you don’t need to have grown up in Bogotá to be taken in by Contreras’s simple but memorable prose and absorbing story line ... Contreras’s depiction of growing up amid such constant violence provides some of the most arresting passages in the book. I couldn’t help scribbling exclamation marks beside the descriptions of the games Chula and her sister play, in which unfortunate Barbies are brutally mutilated ... Tied in with Chula’s bewilderment about her homeland is her curiosity about Petrona [the family maid], whose sections are narrated with lovely simplicity and provide the heart of the book. There’s an elusiveness and obliqueness to Petrona’s narration, perhaps an acknowledgment of the difficulty of representing the voices of those who rarely get to speak for themselves in literary fiction ... In terms of structure, the plot is dependent on Chula’s family being consistently unlucky, being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It works, though, to highlight the suffering that many Colombian families had to endure for generations.

Fruit of the Drunken Tree is one of the most dazzling and devastating novels I’ve read in a long time ... Rojas Contreras, in this vividly imagined and deeply researched book, renders in breathtaking specificity the humanity of each singular participant—whether perpetrator or bystander, betrayer or betrayed ... By the end of this unforgettable book, we understand that what these two young women have endured, both separately and together, will continue to haunt them, together and separately. Readers of Fruit of the Drunken Tree will surely be transformed by the imprints of the journeys Rojas Contreras’ characters undertake; their escape routes include flights of imagination as well as involuntary amnesia. In the best of fiction as in the worst of life, we are given the opportunity to empathize with the suffering of others and to find inspiration in the grace of their resilience.

Rojas Contreras's narrative presents a Colombia different from that portrayed in popular media, such as Netflix's Narcos. She does an excellent job of articulating the complicated political situation and illustrating the heartbreaking day-to-day reality for children ... A fascinating, poetic read from an up-and-coming author. For fans of literary fiction and libraries with immigrant communities

A rich girl, poor girl account of late twentieth century Colombia, Fruit of the Drunken Tree is a staggering emotional journey through the destruction of life in a time of war. It will give you a new perspective on why some people risk it all to come to America ... For those living in that turbulent era, there were no good options. Wealth delayed the inevitable; it didn’t circumvent it. You were either the kidnapped or the kidnapper, killer or prey. Neutral parties got blown up in car bombs or shot in crossfire. It makes for a very thought provoking read, if not a very easy one.

I had yet to read an account that could begin to touch on the looming presence of dread families suffered when political violence invaded private life in Latin America in the late 20th century until I picked up Ingrid Rojas Contreras’s novel Fruit of the Drunken Tree. She weaves a tender-yet-gritty tapestry ... Men seem unreachable, mythological, yet always desired. Men also orchestrate violence, unpredictable and bloody, from a distance. So it is this 'kingdom of women' that must rise above, in spite of men, in order to survive. What grounds Fruit is how it destroys these myths the closer we get to the violence ... Rojas Contreras shines most when she uses Chula’s naïve child perspective, emulating Colombia’s own conflicting obsession over and disgust with Escobar ... Rojas Contreras delivers a story told with honesty and empathy for her characters. As such, Fruit reads like a third novel, not a debut—confident in its delivery, earnest in its subject matter. It also bolsters a female, Latin American voice that must be heard loud and clear.

On its own, the novel’s plot is haunting enough, but it is made even more so with the addition of Contreras’s afterword, which details that many of the events were based upon her own upbringing ... Desperation makes demands. Those of means possess options that simply do not exist for those without. That reality is what makes Fruit of the Drunken Tree a particularly affecting immigrant account. It depicts the complexity and the humanity behind the journey, both of which are needed contributions under a presidency that stokes unfounded fear with its rhetoric about immigrants and refugees ... Contreras navigates this tumultuous terrain with an alluring sensitivity that proves she is an important voice to help us ask and answer such timely questions.

... has the vibe of a memoir even without the author’s afterword ... ne of the book’s strong points is the relationship between Chula, her sister, and their mother.

In vividly rendered prose, textured with generous Spanish, Contreras tells the story of an unlikely bond between two girls on the verge of womanhood ... Contreras’ deeply personal connection to the setting lends every scene a vital authenticity, and a seemingly unlimited reservoir of striking details brings the action to life, like the trumpets and accordions on Christmas Eve, or the messy Afro of Petrona’s suspicious new boyfriend. A riveting, powerful, and fascinating first novel.

Rojas Contreras packs her coming-of-age debut full of details about life in early 1990s Colombia during the last year of Pablo Escobar’s reign of terror. Seven-year-old Chula’s sheltered life in a gated community with her mother and older sister Cassandra cracks open with the arrival of 13-year-old maid Petrona ... This striking novel offers an atmospheric journey into the narrow choices for even a wealthy family as society crumbles around them.

Through Chula’s eyes, events take place in a drifting, foreshortened present, and her incomprehension at times denies the story a quality of three-dimensionality. But a sudden gear change reorders matters, plunging the narrative into a flurry of dangerous developments from which everyone emerges redefined. A tragic history is filtered through fiction, and the results are patchy: sometimes constrained by invention, sometimes piercing.