Talia is the youngest child of Colombian parents Mauro and Elena. Like her brother, Nando, she was born in the United States and is an American citizen. After her father is deported when Talia is a baby, her mother sends her to Bogotá into the care of Perla, her maternal grandmother.

Talia is clever and fearless but also diminutive and virginal. She reflects often on her own inner darkness, a force that causes her to dump burning oil over a man who killed a helpless kitten in the same manner, an act that results in her being sent to a juvenile girls’ detention center. Talia is the focus of much of the story as she attempts to make her way from the detention center in the mountains back to Bogotá, where her father waits with a plane ticket to the United States to reunite with her mother and siblings.

Talia also shows great tenderness as she ends up caring for Perla through the end of her life. She longs for Perla and buys into the notion that her grandmother will come to visit her in her dreams, though it never happens. Eventually, Talia writes a letter of apology to Horatio, the man she attacked.