Animals at the End of the World

[Esquivel's] words are stripped to the bone, and they glisten—or perhaps I should say Myers’s words, which can be best praised through negation: as a native Spanish speaker, I’ll browse through originals when reading their English translations (even great ones will flounder at times), but I didn’t feel the need to do that once here. Myers has spawned her own mighty beast.

— Asymptote

[Esquivel] offers a kids' eye view on a fragmented family, but she also uses her young protagonist to explore the blinders of race and class that exist within her world. [Animals at the End of the World is] a meticulously written book that doesn't feel meticulous at all, adding to its charm.

— Words Without Borders

Animals at the End of the World is a poetic and moving coming-of-age story that lingers long after its final page.

— Latin American Literature Today

[Animals at the End of the World] is a tour de force that stands out as the voice of a generation, offering shrewd insights into a country, an era, and a cohort marked forever.

— Word Literature Today

Gloria Esquivel’s debut is an agile coming-of-age story, deceptively simple but touching on universal themes … and even what it means to be a girl in Colombia. Animals at the End of the World is the kind of book that lingers in the mind and is gradually revealed to the reader as an epiphany.

— Sergio Ávila, Vice

Gloria Susana Esquivel separates the egoistic, sad, often unsuccessful or pathetic world of adults from the heart yearning for love of a human being who is losing, painfully and permanently, the skin of innocence.

— Piedad Bonnett, poet, novelist, and playwright, winner of Colombia's national prize for poetry