Latina/o/x Archives - Page 3 of 11

Bring Me the Head of Quentin Tarantino: Stories by Julián Herbert, translated by Christina MacSweeney [in Shelf Awareness]

13 Oct, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Latin American, Latina/o/x, Mexican, Repost, Short Stories, Translation

The genre-hopping, award-winning Mexican writer, poet, musician, and teacher Julián Herbert made his English-language debut with Tomb Song, an autobiographical novel focused on his relationship with his late mother, a prostitute dying of leukemia. His nonfiction The House of the Pain of Others is a hybrid...

Tigers, Not Daughters by Samantha Mabry [in School Library Journal]

16 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW A year has passed since the oldest Torres daughter, Ana, fatally fell (jumped?) from her bedroom window. Her sisters have endured their loss behind rigid defenses: Jessica assumed Ana's life, including claiming Ana's boyfriend; Iridian assuages her loneliness with Ana's books and writing; Rosa...

Mañanaland by Pam Muñoz Ryan [in Booklist]

08 Sep, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Middle Grade Readers, Repost

Readers might need the opening sentence repeated here: “Somewhere in the Américas, many years after once-upon-a-time and long before happily-ever-after, a boy climbed the cobbled steps of an arched bridge in the tiny village of Santa Maria in the country of the same name.” The...

Happiness Will Follow by Mike Hawthorne [in Booklist]

23 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Graphic Title/Manga/Manwha, Latina/o/x, Memoir, Nonfiction, Puerto Rican, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Born Michael Anthony Hawthorne, his last name was “swiftly pilfered from [his] father” by his Puerto Rican mother “to keep [him] safe in ways she never was.” Yet surviving into adulthood was a near-superhuman feat: his single mother’s fierce love came with horrific stipulations...

The Lost Book of Adana Moreau by Michael Zapata [in Booklist]

16 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Caribbean, Caribbean American, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost

Besides sharing a Dominican background with titular Adana Moreau, Coral Peña seems rather miscast for first-time novelist Michael Zapata’s predominantly male cast. Having made her notable aural debut (serendipitously!) with Angie Cruz’s lauded Dominicana (2019), Peña’s sophomore performance feels more determined than inspired. Zapata’s novel flows through...

Luci Soars by Lulu Delacre [in Shelf Awareness]

14 Aug, by SIBookDragon in Children/Picture Books, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost

With more than three dozen publishing credits, bilingual author/illustrator Lulu Delacre (Us, in Progress) knows how to balance text and art to achieve memorable literary results. In Luci Soars, Delacre introduces a girl whose noticeable difference – she doesn't have a shadow – draws out...

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia [in Shelf Awareness]

03 Jul, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Canadian, Fiction, Latin American, Latina/o/x, Mexican, Mexican American, Repost

Mexican Canadian Silvia Moreno-Garcia is an award-winning, genre-hopping literary chameleon, having successfully written fantasy, fairy tales, vampiric adventure, noir, short stories. Clearly channeling her inner H.P. Lovecraft in Mexican Gothic, she's created her own varietal of irresistible 1950s fungal horror. Socialite Noemí is summoned home early...

The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio [in Booklist]

02 Jun, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Latina/o/x, Memoir, Nonfiction, Repost, South American, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Making both her print and audio debut, Karla Cornejo Villavicencio is a double powerhouse. As a writer, she gifts readers her “creative nonfiction, rooted in careful reporting, translated as poetry, shared by chosen family, and sometimes hard to read.” She’s anything but hard to...

A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabelle Allende, translated by Nick Caistor and Amanda Hopkinson [in Booklist]

25 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Latina/o/x, Repost, South American, Translation

*STARRED REVIEW How fitting that what might be Isabel Allende’s best work gets aurally elevated by one of audio’s most gifted narrators. For nearly 10 hours, Edoardo Ballerini embodies the extended Dalmau family, flowing through six decades, multiple countries, two continents, recounting the Spanish Civil War...

Dominicana by Angie Cruz [in Booklist]

02 Apr, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Caribbean American, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost, Young Adult Readers

“The invisibility of the women, in particular of my community, fueled this desire to write the Dominican experience, the Latinx experience, the immigrant experience, the New York experience,” reveals Angie Cruz in an interview accessible only if you choose audio. Making her narrator debut, fellow...

We Unleash the Merciless Storm by Tehlor Kay Mejia [in Booklist]

24 Mar, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Finishing what she so affectingly began, Kyla García returns to conclude Tehlor Kay Mejia’s high-octane duology in which the privileged world of Medio and the rebellious encampments of La Voz implode, with the inevitable showdown of Medio’s heir-apparent Mateo Garcia and his two wives –...

A Map Is Only One Story: Twenty Writers on Immigration, Family, and the Meaning of Home edited by Nicole Chung and Mensah Demary [in Shelf Awareness]

26 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, African, Arab American, Australian, Black/African American, Canadian, Caribbean American, Chinese American, European, Indian American, Latina/o/x, Memoir, Nonfiction, Persian American, Repost, Southeast Asian American

The title originates in poet Jamila Osman's essay, "A Map of Lost Things": "A map is only one story," writes the Canadian-born daughter of Somali immigrants who now lives in Portland, Ore. "It is not the most important story. The most important story is the...

Dreams from Many Rivers: A Hispanic History of the United States Told in Poems by Margarita Engle [in Booklist]

07 Feb, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Biography, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Middle Grade Readers, Nonfiction, Poetry, Repost, Young Adult Readers

These United States are not quite a quarter-millennium old, but “Hispanic history in regions that are now called the United States spans more than five centuries,” Margarita Engle reminds in her essential opening historical note. With the island’s 15th-century colonization, “the history of the modern...

Where We Come From by Oscar Cásares [in Booklist]

26 Jan, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost

With Spanish names, phrases, and whole sentences appearing every few pages, bilingual narrator Yaeli Arizmendi (the voice of Laura Esquivel’s Spanish editions) instinctively settles into Oscar Cásares’s (Amigoland) latest, in which he returns to his Tex-Mex border hometown of Brownsville. Almost-septuagenarian Nina’s life is not her...

Barely Missing Everything by Matt Mendez [in Booklist]

19 Jan, by SIBookDragon in Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost, Young Adult Readers

Brown lives get overlooked, trampled, dismissed, and destroyed in Matt Mendez’s searing YA debut, set in his El Paso, Texas hometown. Timothy Andrés Pabon – his voice aptly mimicking a teen who’s not quite fully mature – opens in “Chapter Juan” as should-be high school...

Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli [in Booklist]

02 Jan, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Audio, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Mexican, Mexican American, Repost

*STARRED REVIEW Valeria Luiselli’s spectacular latest – her first fiction in English – also marks her co-narrator debut. The Mexican-born Luiselli is the dominant voice here; her accent slight, her enunciation careful. Only her collaboration could have enabled the affecting print-to-audio metamorphosis, choosing how photos, drawings,...

The Prom: A Novel Based on the Hit Broadway Musical by Saundra Mitchell with Bob Martin, Chad Beguelin, and Matthew Sklar [in Booklist]

31 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Drama/Theater, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Two star-crossed seniors just want to dance together at prom. Emma lives with her grandmother since her parents rejected her when she came out, but the bullying at school has never stopped. She and student council president Alyssa are in love, but Alyssa’s fear of...

Big Familia by Tomas Moniz [in Shelf Awareness]

29 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost

For readers in search of a tautly streamlined, deeply resonating, contemporary family story, Big Familia by Tomas Moniz (Bellies and Buffalos) won't disappoint. In this short novel, Juan Gutiérrez is a longtime Berkeley resident, the amicably divorced father to high school senior Stella and a self-described Chicano...

We Set the Dark on Fire by Tehlor Kay Mejia [in Booklist]

28 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Audio, Fiction, Latina/o/x, Repost, Young Adult Readers

*STARRED REVIEW Being born on the wrong side of the wall means Dani’s parents took impossible risks to give her every opportunity for a better life. Despite her indigent origins, well-forged documents granted Dani access to the elite Medio School for Girls; as top graduate, Dani’s...

Booklist Backlist: Fictional Worlds, Real Meals [in Booklist]

16 Dec, by SIBookDragon in Adult Readers, African, Arab, Arab American, Black/African American, Canadian, Cuban, Cuban American, Fiction, Filipina/o American, Iranian, Iranian American, Japanese, Korean, Latina/o/x, Lebanese, Lebanese American, Lists, Nonethnic-specific, Persian, Persian American, Repost, Southeast Asian American, Translation, Vietnamese, Vietnamese American

Yeah, sure: Proust and his madeleine-dipped-in-tea set the barometer for toothsome leitmotifs. I admit to the possibility that my academic indoctrination in his long, long musings made me quite the hungry reader. Or maybe I’m just always greedy for nourishment, with preferences in the belly...

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