Worried you missed your great read of 2022? Here are titles by Latina authors you should consider picking up before the end of December or adding to your TBR for 2023!

How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water by Angie Cruz

Cara Romero is in her mid-50s and suddenly forced back into the job market for the first time in decades. She’s set up with a job counselor and begins narrating her life story. Throughout twelve sessions, Cara recounts love affairs and struggles with debt, gentrification, and loss. She confronts her darkest secrets and regrets and reveals herself as a woman still full of light.

 

 

 

The Neapolitan Sisters by Margo Candela

The Bernal sisters are reunited at their East L.A. childhood home for youngest sister Maritza’s dream wedding. The three sisters live vastly different lives, each having found ways of coping with their difficult childhood. As they come together each comes to terms with one another, their parents, and the secrets from their shared past.

 

 

 

Chingona: Owning Your Inner Bad Ass for Healing and Justice by Alma Zaragoza-Petty

As a first-generation Mexican American, Alma Zaragoza-Petty recalls her childhood, split between her grandparents’ home in Acapulco and her family’s home in Los Angeles. She describes claiming the “chingona” spirit to lead us through the courage to speak out against oppressive systems. As we begin to own who we are as chingonas, we go back to where our memories lead, insist on telling our own stories, and see our scars as a proof of healing.

 

 

 

Crying in the Bathroom: a memoir by Erika L. Sánchez

Erika L. Sánchez is a self-described pariah, misfit, and disappointment. She’s the foul-mouthed daughter of Mexican immigrants who painted her nails black. She’s now an award-winning novelist, poet, and essayist, but she still has that irrepressible laugh, acerbic wit, and keen perception of the world around her. In her memoir, Sánchez writes about sex, white feminism, and debilitating depression with tones of raunchiness and brutal honesty of a best friend.

 

 

In the Shadow of the Mountain: a Memoir of courage by Silvia Vasquez-Lavado

Silvia Vasquez-Lavado’s memoir chronicles her page-turning, pulse-raising journey to Mount Everest. A Latina hero among the tech elite of Silicon Valley, Silvia was suffering silently from alcoholism, childhood trauma, and hiding her sexuality from her family. Then, she started climbing. The draw of the brute force required for the ascent and the proximity to death on the side of a massive mountain woke her up. She then took her most significant pain as a survivor to the biggest mountain: Everest.

 

 

Twice a Quinceañera by Yamile Saied Mendez

Following a shocking confrontation with her cheating fiance, Nadia Palacio is hyperventilating at sharing this news with her Argentinian family. She finds the perfect solution when she glimpses an article about a Latina woman celebrating herself with a second quinceanera. Nadia decides to raise a glass to her achievements with a treintanera – her double quinces. Nadia is proud of her decision until she meets the man in charge of her venue. It’s her college sweetheart. And he looks more delicious than a three-tiered cake. Will Nadia get a second chance at first love?