America, Let Me In: A Choose Your Immigration Story

Colombian-born comedian and Late Show writer Torres Medina debuts with a darkly hilarious and cleverly constructed explainer on American immigration. It’s formatted in a choose-the-outcome style that forces readers to attempt to navigate the immigration system themselves (and suffer the consequences of their decisions) through myriad red-tape-laden processes clearly designed to set applicants up for failure (or death—though as Torres Medina assures the reader, “if you die in this book you DO NOT die in real life”). At the beginning, the reader selects their “difficulty level” (reader be warned: if you select “easy,” you immediately are sent to a “the end” page because, as you should have known, “There is no easy way to move to America”). Selecting “medium difficulty” sets you on a path as a “hot” (the hotness is important) white French luxury brand executive who moves to America on an expensive work visa. It’s all downhill from there, as the process becomes significantly more difficult and governed by absurdity. One possible outcome is determined by whether or not you know who Morrissey is (“Oh... you like the arts”); in another, you end up turning to a Floridian life of crime because you can’t get financial aid for college. These jokes have a sharp edge of realism—there really are separate visas for the arty, schools really do expect international students to live on $1000-per-month stipends in Miami. Eye-opening and entertaining, this is a gem. (Mar.)