littlezen reviewed Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez
Review of 'Olga Dies Dreaming' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Thanks, Maya! ❤️
384 pages
English language
Published Jan. 21, 2022 by Flatiron Books.
Olga Dies Dreaming
4 stars
(4 reviews)
It's 2017, and Olga and her brother, Pedro “Prieto” Acevedo, are boldfaced names in their hometown of New York. Prieto is a popular congressman representing their gentrifying Latinx neighborhood in Brooklyn, while Olga is the tony wedding planner for Manhattan’s power brokers.
Despite their alluring public lives, behind closed doors things are far less rosy. Sure, Olga can orchestrate the love stories of the 1 percent but she can’t seem to find her own. . . until she meets Matteo, who forces her to confront the effects of long-held family secrets.
Olga and Prieto’s mother, Blanca, a Young Lord turned radical, abandoned her children to advance a militant political cause, leaving them to be raised by their grandmother. Now, with the winds of hurricane season, Blanca has come barreling back into their lives.
Set against the backdrop of New York City in the months surrounding the most devastating hurricane in …
It's 2017, and Olga and her brother, Pedro “Prieto” Acevedo, are boldfaced names in their hometown of New York. Prieto is a popular congressman representing their gentrifying Latinx neighborhood in Brooklyn, while Olga is the tony wedding planner for Manhattan’s power brokers.
Despite their alluring public lives, behind closed doors things are far less rosy. Sure, Olga can orchestrate the love stories of the 1 percent but she can’t seem to find her own. . . until she meets Matteo, who forces her to confront the effects of long-held family secrets.
Olga and Prieto’s mother, Blanca, a Young Lord turned radical, abandoned her children to advance a militant political cause, leaving them to be raised by their grandmother. Now, with the winds of hurricane season, Blanca has come barreling back into their lives.
Set against the backdrop of New York City in the months surrounding the most devastating hurricane in Puerto Rico’s history, Xochitl Gonzalez’s Olga Dies Dreaming is a story that examines political corruption, familial strife, and the very notion of the American dream—all while asking what it really means to weather a storm.
flashy_dragon reviewed Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez
Enjoyable peek into a contemporary Puerto-Rican family in New York
4 stars
Olga Dies Dreaming occurs in recent contemporary America, specifically within the Puerto Rican diaspora living in Brooklyn, New York, through the view of Olga and her family.
Olga was essentially raised by her brother Prieto and her grandmother. Her father was largely absent due to drugs, and then death. Her mother absent to be a revolutionary.
Olga tries to navigate life as Puerto Rican descendant within a rich white person’s world. Her brother is trying to represent Brooklyn in US Congress. Both experience mixed success, and always with the remote judgment from their mother, who shares her thoughts on their progress through untraceable letters.
Gonzalez touches on family, belonging, love, and abuse. She’s never particularly heavy-handed, and I feel that she realistically portrays struggles that descendants of minority immigrants face within contemporary America.
This was a book club pick, and a fairly good choice, in my opinion. I enjoyed it …
Olga Dies Dreaming occurs in recent contemporary America, specifically within the Puerto Rican diaspora living in Brooklyn, New York, through the view of Olga and her family.
Olga was essentially raised by her brother Prieto and her grandmother. Her father was largely absent due to drugs, and then death. Her mother absent to be a revolutionary.
Olga tries to navigate life as Puerto Rican descendant within a rich white person’s world. Her brother is trying to represent Brooklyn in US Congress. Both experience mixed success, and always with the remote judgment from their mother, who shares her thoughts on their progress through untraceable letters.
Gonzalez touches on family, belonging, love, and abuse. She’s never particularly heavy-handed, and I feel that she realistically portrays struggles that descendants of minority immigrants face within contemporary America.
This was a book club pick, and a fairly good choice, in my opinion. I enjoyed it much more than I expected. I recommend it.
Eduardo Santiago reviewed Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez
Review of 'Olga Dies Dreaming' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Ambitious. Gonzalez packs a lot into her first novel: parental abandonment, U.S. colonialism, revolutionary politics, minority & women’s & LGBTQ rights, corruption, shallowness, economic inequality, love, forgiveness. It didn’t always work for me but it was a hell of a ride, and kudos to her for aiming high.
The story was compelling, even though there is little I find as shallow as elaborate weddings or people whose day can be ruined by the wrong napkins or colors. Somehow, here, I cared. (About the people. Not about the napkins.) The timeline progression was effective: JULY 2017 on the opening page, and every Puertorican reader starts getting chills: we know what’s coming. Then August, then September, everyone acting all normal, because what could they know then of Hurricane María, and that somehow makes the tension more painful.
The maternal epistles, though, interspersed throughout, they felt clumsy, like a quick tool to get …
Ambitious. Gonzalez packs a lot into her first novel: parental abandonment, U.S. colonialism, revolutionary politics, minority & women’s & LGBTQ rights, corruption, shallowness, economic inequality, love, forgiveness. It didn’t always work for me but it was a hell of a ride, and kudos to her for aiming high.
The story was compelling, even though there is little I find as shallow as elaborate weddings or people whose day can be ruined by the wrong napkins or colors. Somehow, here, I cared. (About the people. Not about the napkins.) The timeline progression was effective: JULY 2017 on the opening page, and every Puertorican reader starts getting chills: we know what’s coming. Then August, then September, everyone acting all normal, because what could they know then of Hurricane María, and that somehow makes the tension more painful.
The maternal epistles, though, interspersed throughout, they felt clumsy, like a quick tool to get some exposition out of the way. Nobody writes like that. Nobody talks like that, either, in the infrequent preachy revolutionary-radical-speech parts. The characters are... how about one-and-three-quarter dimensional? Simple and predictable for the most part, smart and sassy and well-intentioned with periodic attempts—some more successful than others—at nuance and complexity. The relationships between them didn’t always make sense, especially some of the attractions, but I guess attractions don’t always make sense IRL either.
Sometimes five-star material, sometimes three. Mostly sweet, loving, with important (albeit unsubtle) messages. As you know, I'm OK with all of those. I enjoyed it, and am curious what non-Puertoricans will think of it. (Katie, we're due for lunch!)
