Lit Latinx

Machado speaks of the female perpetrator and queer abusers as ghosts that have “always been here, haunting the ruler’s house” in this unique memoir that details the author’s experiences being in an abusive, queer relationship. The narrative takes different forms– among them an erotica, an academic analysis of female queerness, a haunted house– in detailing the many aspects of what it’s like to be abused by an intimate partner, showing just how complex and layered the experience is. With the use of second person, Machado snatches all hopes you might have had in staying distant from the abuse. You’re inserted front-and-center and made to live out her experiences.

This anthology features some of the most poppin’ Latinx writers. The poems and personal essays featured here cover everything from immigration, sexuality, music, and more, showing glimpses of the rich tapestry that is the Latinx community. Editor Fennell centered the collection on “letting our truths run wild, and pushing against whatever it is you think is the ideal Latinx individual.” Let ’em know!

Lina Santos is a wedding planner that was left at the altar. I’ve got one word for sis: Tragic. Since then, she’s continued to run her wedding planning business with a fair amount of success in D.C. until one day she’s offered a big opportunity by someone important. The catch is that it’ll mean working with the man who convinced her former fiancé to leave her high and dry– his brother, Max. This is a fun romp through the hate-to-love romance trope, and has been described as giving serious 90s teas.

Mateo is a 16-year-old queer kid with dreams of becoming an actor when the one thing he’s always feared happens: His parents are detained by I.C.E. His father goes to jail, and his mother a detention center. Suddenly, he has the weight of the world on his shoulders in the form of his 7-year-old sister and the family bodega. While he tries to maintain his dream of going to Tisch School of the Arts, he keeps his struggles from his two friends (one of whom is a possible love interest) in this heartbreaking novel about the effects of separating families.

“Ever feel like the land is swallowing you whole, Sierra?”

The eleven stories here speak of heritage and land and how the two things relate to Indigenous Latinx women based in Colorado and Denver. The stories span from following a child abandoned by a woman who was made a mother too young, a sex worker and her daughter who make a big move into hostile territory, how a family struggles with a breast cancer diagnosis, and more.

Dominican born Adana Moreau writes a science fiction novel in 1929 New Orleans with her son Maxwell at her side. Before she can finish its sequel, she falls ill and she and her son burn the manuscript.

Eighty years later, Saul Drower sets out for New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina prepares to hit the city in order to fulfill his dead grandfather’s request of returning a mysterious manuscript to a man named Maxwell Moreau, a physicist who speaks of parallel universes. Zapata pays homage to the power of storytelling in this imaginative historical fantasy.