Xochitl Gonzalez is the New York Times bestselling author of Olga Dies Dreaming. Named a Best of 2022 by The New York Times, TIME, Kirkus, Washington Post, and NPR, Olga Dies Dreaming was the winner of the Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize in Fiction and The New York City Book Awards. Gonzalez is a 2021 M.F.A. graduate from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her non-fiction work has been published in Elle Decor, Allure, Vogue, Real Simple, and The Cut. Her commentary writing for The Atlantic was recognized as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
A native Brooklynite and proud public school graduate, Gonzalez holds a BA from Brown University and lives in her hometown of Brooklyn with her dog, Hectah Lavoe.
Victim (2024) Andrew Boryga "You will burn through Victim and find your hands scalded when you are done. It's not just because of the tight, engaging prose and pitch perfect voice of our narrator, Javier - but because no one is innocent in this stinging satire that turns everything about meritocracy and success on its head. Boryga pulls no punches, and leaves you alternating rolling with laughter and cringing as a result."
Like Happiness (2024) Ursula Villarreal-Moura "Thanks to Villarreal-Moura, I found another perfect book to recommend for both Sunday reads and subway commutes - my favorite kind! The retrospective confession of San Antonio-native Tatum about her thorny relationship with a prominent Nuyorican writer intertwines desire, destiny, and a love for art and literature in what feels like a transformative conversation with an old friend. Expertly written with striking intimacy and heartbreaking clarity, Like Happiness accomplishes a profound emotional electrocution that will leave you floating lighter for days."
The Great Divide (2024) Cristina Henríquez "Against the backdrop of the construction of the Panama Canal, Cristina Henriquez's commanding and fearless prose conducts us through the very depth of the Panamanian jungle, where young Ada and Omar fight bravely - for themselves, their families and their communities survival - in a rapidly changing world. Violent empire and volatile sickness combine for harrowing effect in this vivid novel that interrogates all that is sacrificed in the name of progress. By turns macabre and also truly joyful, The Great Divide left me with a powerful ache for forgotten histories that will not soon leave me."
The Bullet Swallower (2024) Elizabeth Gonzalez James "An utterly original, wild ride rendered by Gonzalez James' masterful hand that turns the traditional redemption narrative on its head. In cracking open her own family legends, The Bullet Swallower brings to vibrant, three dimensional life the people and history of the Mexican and Texas border. Full of heart and humor, the magic in this book is not what is invented, but that it makes you wonder what it is, in all our histories, we may have forgotten?"
Candelaria (2023) Melissa Lozada-Oliva "Buckle up - Candelaria is a literary ride unlike any other. A wild journey through generational trauma, untold truths, sibling rivalry and intimacy via backroads lined with cinema, cult fitness and the supernatural. Fear not, though the landscape Lozada-Oliva creates is utterly original and chaotic at times, she is a masterful guide whom I would follow anywhere. Heartbreaking, hilarious and absurd in the very best way, Candelaria sticks to your soul and leaves you seeing the world and the people in it a bit differently."
Where There Was Fire (2023) John Manuel Arias "A haunting, operatic saga of family, history and place. Where There Was Fire beautifully braids love, lust, magic and the destructive power of man to wondrous and, at times, heartbreaking effect. Arias has created an utterly original, unforgettable tale of family that will sear a place in the reader's soul."
Tropicalia (2023) Harold Rogers "With a tremendously powerful voice and a commanding hand, Harold Roger's Tropicalia shoots us out of a cannon from page one...With riveting and fearless prose and moments of tension so thick they make your spine tingle, Troplicalia weaves us in and out of the Cunha family's past and one inextricably linked week in their present that will force the siblings to decide if it's possible to escape fate and what it means to define ourselves on our own terms. This book and the humanity, humor and, yes, even rage, these characters made me feel, will stay with me for a long time."
The Apartment (2023) Ana Menéndez "Ana Menendez gives us an intimate, picturesque tale that grows into a mysterious and supernatural journey through time as the conflicted narrators become ghosts and echoes of each other. Striking and haunting, this powerful novel battles between gut-wrenchingly lonely and harrowing moments in America, and the multifaceted, resilient, and radically caring community that has blossomed against them. It's a reminder that we breathe new air everyday, that we are always connected to each other, that we survive when we stick together."
The Weight (2023) Jeff Boyd "As a reader, Jeff Boyd's writing is the kind you love: he builds a world and inhabits it with round, flawed, real people. His astute observations and wry humor pull you in but his characters make you stay. As a writer, Jeff's writing is the kind of thing that makes you bang your head against the wall wondering, 'How the F did he do that!? How did he make this insane, complicated, thing feel as easy as the riff of a jazz bass line.' In The Weight, Boyd somehow skewers liberal Portland while implicating all of us and, in a truly pertinent way, ask what it means to really be 'accepting of self.'"
Rosewater (2023) Liv Little "Rosewater is sensuous, urgent and pulsating with youth -- embracing all of its messiness, discovery and boundless capacity for love."
Carmen and Grace (2023) Melissa Coss Aquino "I was crying like I lost my best friend as I finished. . . . This book is an act of love . . . It will break you apart and remind you that we can all be put back together again, stronger, and wiser than before."
A Country You Can Leave (2023) Asale Angel-Ajani "From page one, A Country You Can Leave is a riveting, exasperating, and deeply heartbreaking tale of mother-daughter strife and resilience. Asale Angel-Ajani is an explosive talent and her story of Afro-Cuban Lara coming of age in a ruthless headlock with her survivalist Russian mother, Yevgenia, will disintegrate your strong-held emotional walls, down to her very last act of resistance."
My Government Means to Kill Me (2022) Rasheed Newson "Fresh, vibrant and utterly unapologetic. Rasheed Newson has written an unforgettable, take-no-prisoners novel alive with humor and full of urgency. Newson's Trey and his determination to live life on his own terms, even in the face of death all around him, brings into three dimension an era of New York Queer life that, too often, has been flattened and whitewashed by history."
A Map for the Missing (2022) Belinda Huijuan Tang "A stunning debut full of vivid writing, A Map for the Missing reminds you of exactly why we read in the first place. Through the expertly drawn and utterly original characters of Yitian and Hanwen, Belinda Huijuan Tang confronts how history, mobility, memory, and desire all intertwine in our perpetual search for peace. From the campus of an elite American university to the countryside of Cultural Revolutionary China, Tang confidently and artfully paints a complex and vast world that is both ethereal and familiar, characters concurrently exacting and reckless. The result is a novel that explores the bittersweetness of returns and the ultimate healing behind coming home."
God's Children Are Little Broken Things (2022) Arinze Ifeakandu "This collection is the very meaning of exquisite; even the heartbreaking moments come with the great beauty of being alive. Delicate, raw in its honesty and viscerally alive, God's Children Are Little Broken Things, is the kind of collection that steals your breath and fills your heart."
