Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Flatiron Books (2022), 384 pages
Description
"A blazing talent debuts with the tale of a status-driven wedding planner grappling with her social ambitions, absent mother, and Puerto Rican roots, all in the wake of Hurricane María. It's 2017, and Olga and her brother, Pedro "Prieto" Acevedo, are bold-faced 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 powerbrokers. Despite their alluring public lives, behind closed doors things are far less rosy. Sure, Olga can orchestrate the love stories of the 1%, 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... Twenty-seven years ago, their 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"--… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member franoscar
Spoilers Abound.
This is well written & I see why people like it.
However it made me angry.
The mother is a monster. And she is a revolutionary. I am sure it happens. Mothers of different sorts are monsters. [see that Anne Tyler book I read recently.] But the mother who is a monster because she puts
I also felt that Olga and her brother both get let off the hook way too easily. We can understand why they do bad things without feeling that we should cheer for them. I'm not sure why the perfect, idealized Matteo fell in love and stayed in love. I don't know if that's supposed to be believable or just romantic.
I guess the brother didn't get caught up in the corruption scandals because he sold his votes for silence & not for money. But wouldn't the bad guys have made sure he was more compromised? Also when all the info about corruption on the city council came out, didn't anybody notice that the brother was also voting the way that the bad guys wanted him to vote? I don't understand how he was able to maintain a political career. That seems very cynical.
Sincerely, Fran
This is well written & I see why people like it.
However it made me angry.
The mother is a monster. And she is a revolutionary. I am sure it happens. Mothers of different sorts are monsters. [see that Anne Tyler book I read recently.] But the mother who is a monster because she puts
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the revolution before her family is a tired cliche and I believe that people who want change but are afraid of revolution get caught in that tired cliche. I think it is a cliche that harms women who do choose to work for revolution/change and who also love their children. Women are told they have to put their children first or they are bad mothers but, in fact, a woman can be dedicated to change in the world and can also care deeply for her children and can also be a fine mother. And to me that is a much more interesting story.I also felt that Olga and her brother both get let off the hook way too easily. We can understand why they do bad things without feeling that we should cheer for them. I'm not sure why the perfect, idealized Matteo fell in love and stayed in love. I don't know if that's supposed to be believable or just romantic.
I guess the brother didn't get caught up in the corruption scandals because he sold his votes for silence & not for money. But wouldn't the bad guys have made sure he was more compromised? Also when all the info about corruption on the city council came out, didn't anybody notice that the brother was also voting the way that the bad guys wanted him to vote? I don't understand how he was able to maintain a political career. That seems very cynical.
Sincerely, Fran
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LibraryThing member richardderus
Rating: 3.5* of five
The Publisher Says: A blazing talent debuts with the tale of a status-driven wedding planner grappling with her social ambitions, absent mother, and Puerto Rican roots, all in the wake of Hurricane Maria
It's 2017, and Olga and her brother, Pedro "Prieto" Acevedo, are bold-faced
Despite their alluring public lives, behind closed doors things are far less rosy. Sure, Olga can orchestrate the love stories of the 1%, 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...
Twenty-seven years ago, their 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, 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.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Spoilery Review: First, read this:
There were, inevitably, children’s clothing stores, furniture shops still offering bedroom sets by layaway, and dollar stores whose awnings teemed with suspended inflatable dolls, beach chairs, laundry carts, and other impulse purchases a mom might make on a Saturday afternoon, exhausted by errand running with her kids. There was the sneaker store where Olga used to buy her cute kicks, the fruit store Prieto had worked at in high school, the little storefront that sold the kind of old-lady bras Abuelita used to wear. On the sidewalks, the Mexican women began to set up their snack stands. Mango with lime and chili on this corner, tamales on that. Until the Mexicans had come to Sunset Park, Olga had never tried any of this food, and now she always tried to leave a little room to grab a snack on her way home. Despite the relatively early hour, most of the shops were open, music blasting into the streets, granting the avenue the aura of a party. In a few more hours, cars with their stereos pumping, teens with boom boxes en route to the neighborhood’s public pool, and laughing children darting in front of their mothers would add to the cacophony that Olga had grown to think of as the sound of a Saturday.
I spent a chunk of my 1980s in Nuyorican Sunset Park. I grew up around Spanish-speaking people (including my oldest sister, whose command of Mexican Spanish exceeds her command of English) and wasn't thrown by the blended Spanglish interwoven in the book...that's a positive feature to me. Closeted gay guys were a dime a dozen, then as now; closeted gay Nuyorican guys were even more common then than now. And a lot of 'em were/are married, with kids, and a sadly disproportionate percentage were/are also hooked on crack then, heroin now. So I came (!) to this read ready to rumble. Papi dead of AIDS ("this pato disease," as Mami calls it in a letter), Mami in the Cause and effectively dead...yeah, I was feelin' it in all my wypipo leftist soul.
“Debt is one of The Man’s great tools for keeping people of color oppressed.”
–and–
“You must remember, mijo, even people who were once your sails can become your anchors.”
I don't like Olga, or Prieto, at all.
Sellout is the kindest word I have for them, both of them, the grey and compromised souls they got from their rootstock. I think the thing they rebelled against, terrorism in place of activism, makes sense given that they lost their mother to it...and does she have a blinkin' nerve showing back up (even if only by letter) to "take command" after what she left behind!...but. But, but, but.
“Because I understand all the problems, I just fundamentally don’t believe we can fix them. However, I fully support those on the bottom taking as much advantage of the top as humanly possible.”
You are your choices. Own them, and accept the prices they exact; this is what not one of these characters did until something outside themselves actually *forced* them to. And Prieto, for whom the stakes and therefore the costs are so very high, was guilty of the rankest betrayals and most repugnant of sophistic self-justification; in the end, the chickens coming home to roost in the body of Mami...or in the box of worms the goddamned woman sends him...let me just say that this subplot is terrible, realistic, and very, very angering for me on more levels than I can count.
So the story's a banger, right?! YES! This is gonna be epic fucking television! A telenovela in Spanglish for me and my fellow wypipo! (You do not know cross-cultural humor until you've seen English closed-captioned telenovelas.)
I have some problems. My rating says so.
Mami's an evil bitch, a stone-cold rotten-souled foul excresence of a person whose cold, cold heart would shame the Devil Herself.
"Olga, I love your mother as much, if not more, than my actual sibling. But there's a reason that I never had kids. Mothering and birthing a child are not the same. Children don't ask to be born. They don't owe anybody anything. This is one area your mother and I never saw eye to eye on, frankly."
Her heartlessness is a calculated creation by an author to make a point. Yes, yes, yes, I am a reasonably skilled decoder and can in fact separate reality from fiction. But this is fiction that illuminates a reality far too often ignored in our world. Wrong is being done everywhere, wrong met with wrong, and perpetuating a cycle of use and abuse and victimization that simply won't end.
The price of Imperialism is lives. —JUAN GONZÁLEZ (epigraph of the book)
And what is new about that, you ask. Nothing, not one thing, and that's where I got off the train. Because there needs to be some reckoning for whose lives are paying this price, and not on an institutional level....
Olga and Prieto are compromised, like I said above; I like to read about grey characters because frankly ain't too many all-pure-n-shiny knights out there. What I find so hard to make part of this as a tale of feminist redemption is the fact that Olga knowingly fleeces her clients, launders money for people best left to God or the Devil to deal with, and still manages to fuck up her response to Hurricane María by deciding she shouldn't be a "white savior" and go help the suffering to recover.
Prieto, meanwhile, faces off against their mother in her native element—Revolución!—and comes away knowing 1) she doesn't love him; 2) she's known he's gay all his life; 3) she thinks he's weak and useless, like his (crack-addicted) father. And this is touching bottom for him. This, not the HIV he could've avoided possibly passing on to someone before he knew he had it; this, not allowing his moral compass to be set by vile, evil people because he wanted to stay in politics.
Not down with this, Author González. Not at all, these are some bad actors becoming "good"...okay, they wouldn't claim that, better...by force majeure. And that sits wrong with me, not that it took this to get them to face up to themselves but that this is what it took to get them to face up to themselves. There's compromised and then there's complicit, and these're some complicit folk here.
So my fifth star went away, maximally I was at four.
But then there was that epilogue-y thing set in 2025. Another half-star. It was not a good idea. It wasn't any better or worse, writing-wise, than the rest of the book, but it was...ill advised, I'll stop there. And that's how a delightfully fun, deeply absorbing, hard-charging and target-aiming home run of a read turned into a sacrifice bunt that put the runner in scoring position.
And left her there.
The Publisher Says: A blazing talent debuts with the tale of a status-driven wedding planner grappling with her social ambitions, absent mother, and Puerto Rican roots, all in the wake of Hurricane Maria
It's 2017, and Olga and her brother, Pedro "Prieto" Acevedo, are bold-faced
Show More
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 powerbrokers.Despite their alluring public lives, behind closed doors things are far less rosy. Sure, Olga can orchestrate the love stories of the 1%, 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...
Twenty-seven years ago, their 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, 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.
I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.
My Spoilery Review: First, read this:
There were, inevitably, children’s clothing stores, furniture shops still offering bedroom sets by layaway, and dollar stores whose awnings teemed with suspended inflatable dolls, beach chairs, laundry carts, and other impulse purchases a mom might make on a Saturday afternoon, exhausted by errand running with her kids. There was the sneaker store where Olga used to buy her cute kicks, the fruit store Prieto had worked at in high school, the little storefront that sold the kind of old-lady bras Abuelita used to wear. On the sidewalks, the Mexican women began to set up their snack stands. Mango with lime and chili on this corner, tamales on that. Until the Mexicans had come to Sunset Park, Olga had never tried any of this food, and now she always tried to leave a little room to grab a snack on her way home. Despite the relatively early hour, most of the shops were open, music blasting into the streets, granting the avenue the aura of a party. In a few more hours, cars with their stereos pumping, teens with boom boxes en route to the neighborhood’s public pool, and laughing children darting in front of their mothers would add to the cacophony that Olga had grown to think of as the sound of a Saturday.
I spent a chunk of my 1980s in Nuyorican Sunset Park. I grew up around Spanish-speaking people (including my oldest sister, whose command of Mexican Spanish exceeds her command of English) and wasn't thrown by the blended Spanglish interwoven in the book...that's a positive feature to me. Closeted gay guys were a dime a dozen, then as now; closeted gay Nuyorican guys were even more common then than now. And a lot of 'em were/are married, with kids, and a sadly disproportionate percentage were/are also hooked on crack then, heroin now. So I came (!) to this read ready to rumble. Papi dead of AIDS ("this pato disease," as Mami calls it in a letter), Mami in the Cause and effectively dead...yeah, I was feelin' it in all my wypipo leftist soul.
“Debt is one of The Man’s great tools for keeping people of color oppressed.”
–and–
“You must remember, mijo, even people who were once your sails can become your anchors.”
I don't like Olga, or Prieto, at all.
Sellout is the kindest word I have for them, both of them, the grey and compromised souls they got from their rootstock. I think the thing they rebelled against, terrorism in place of activism, makes sense given that they lost their mother to it...and does she have a blinkin' nerve showing back up (even if only by letter) to "take command" after what she left behind!...but. But, but, but.
“Because I understand all the problems, I just fundamentally don’t believe we can fix them. However, I fully support those on the bottom taking as much advantage of the top as humanly possible.”
You are your choices. Own them, and accept the prices they exact; this is what not one of these characters did until something outside themselves actually *forced* them to. And Prieto, for whom the stakes and therefore the costs are so very high, was guilty of the rankest betrayals and most repugnant of sophistic self-justification; in the end, the chickens coming home to roost in the body of Mami...or in the box of worms the goddamned woman sends him...let me just say that this subplot is terrible, realistic, and very, very angering for me on more levels than I can count.
So the story's a banger, right?! YES! This is gonna be epic fucking television! A telenovela in Spanglish for me and my fellow wypipo! (You do not know cross-cultural humor until you've seen English closed-captioned telenovelas.)
I have some problems. My rating says so.
Mami's an evil bitch, a stone-cold rotten-souled foul excresence of a person whose cold, cold heart would shame the Devil Herself.
"Olga, I love your mother as much, if not more, than my actual sibling. But there's a reason that I never had kids. Mothering and birthing a child are not the same. Children don't ask to be born. They don't owe anybody anything. This is one area your mother and I never saw eye to eye on, frankly."
Her heartlessness is a calculated creation by an author to make a point. Yes, yes, yes, I am a reasonably skilled decoder and can in fact separate reality from fiction. But this is fiction that illuminates a reality far too often ignored in our world. Wrong is being done everywhere, wrong met with wrong, and perpetuating a cycle of use and abuse and victimization that simply won't end.
The price of Imperialism is lives. —JUAN GONZÁLEZ (epigraph of the book)
And what is new about that, you ask. Nothing, not one thing, and that's where I got off the train. Because there needs to be some reckoning for whose lives are paying this price, and not on an institutional level....
Olga and Prieto are compromised, like I said above; I like to read about grey characters because frankly ain't too many all-pure-n-shiny knights out there. What I find so hard to make part of this as a tale of feminist redemption is the fact that Olga knowingly fleeces her clients, launders money for people best left to God or the Devil to deal with, and still manages to fuck up her response to Hurricane María by deciding she shouldn't be a "white savior" and go help the suffering to recover.
Prieto, meanwhile, faces off against their mother in her native element—Revolución!—and comes away knowing 1) she doesn't love him; 2) she's known he's gay all his life; 3) she thinks he's weak and useless, like his (crack-addicted) father. And this is touching bottom for him. This, not the HIV he could've avoided possibly passing on to someone before he knew he had it; this, not allowing his moral compass to be set by vile, evil people because he wanted to stay in politics.
Not down with this, Author González. Not at all, these are some bad actors becoming "good"...okay, they wouldn't claim that, better...by force majeure. And that sits wrong with me, not that it took this to get them to face up to themselves but that this is what it took to get them to face up to themselves. There's compromised and then there's complicit, and these're some complicit folk here.
So my fifth star went away, maximally I was at four.
But then there was that epilogue-y thing set in 2025. Another half-star. It was not a good idea. It wasn't any better or worse, writing-wise, than the rest of the book, but it was...ill advised, I'll stop there. And that's how a delightfully fun, deeply absorbing, hard-charging and target-aiming home run of a read turned into a sacrifice bunt that put the runner in scoring position.
And left her there.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Booklover217
"His Papi had always told him that the United States made Puerto Rico's handcuffs, but it was other Puerto Ricans who helped put them on."
Papi wasn't lying and Papi was probably the wisest character in the entire book. I wanted more of Papi, period.
I've been holding off on reading Olga Dies
The beginning introduced me to lots of characters, mostly unlikable which I don't ever mind as long as it's leading somewhere. The first half felt like the soup was brewing but I didn't need the sazon, adobo, sofrito and the achiote at the same time. I don't fault the author for this but the editor dropped the ball because it felt a little too messy. However, Xochitl's ability to portray Brooklyn as its own character was brilliant. That was the journey that felt the most real to me. The character of Blanca was one of my favorites because she was the most developed and spoke so honestly about being Puerto Rican, expectations of women and motherhood and rips the bandaid off to uncover the true status of Puerto Rico. The Puerto Rican history and social commentary sprinkled throughout the pages is what gave this book its' unique flavor and why it is such a necessary read at this time.
The second half of the book completely boiled over and shifts the focus to a dark plot about Hurricane Maria, neocolonialism, revolution, corporate greed and violence in various forms. I felt triggered and disoriented because it was not a smooth transition but then again the U.S. violently occupied Puerto Rico, refuses to leave and continues to commit all types of genocide on the people of the island. To see the POV of the white rich people that continue to steal our land and livelihood is one that you often don't see in books today. Bravo to Xochitl for being bold in that choice.
Although, this book felt like two different books at the same time I appreciated what it had to say about motherhood, colonialism, liberation and gentrification.
To be clear, I did not hate this book. I think it is timely and necessary and speaks boldly about Puerto Rican history that has completely either been erased or whitewashed. I do think it offers much value. However, I would be remiss if I did not point out where this book had moments of insensitivity and got cringey.
This novel takes place in contemporary NY and the language choices around substance use, HIV awareness and sexual assault did not sit right with me because the instances added to more stigma rather than provide insight and empathy. It read like language that has been historically been used by elite Whites especially, to further marginalize certain groups and dehumanize them. Papi was repeatedly called a "junkie" or "crackhead" and dehumanized with no exploration into his backstop. His identity was that of having AIDS and being a drug user. The use of the word "AIDS" in such a violent way by several characters was off putting especially in the ways it was being weaponzied by the characters in 2017 setting. I see what the intent was but because the issues stayed surface level nothing new new was added to the narratives about substance use and HIV. In fact, it didn't even build empathy for the character who was most affected. Papi definitely didn't deserve that treatment as well. Therr is also a sexual assault that was also hard to read because of the choices that were made. It felt like the abuser got to walk away without repercussions and made it feel like dramatic effect only.
After all is said and done, Olga Dies Dreaming is effective in shedding light on the history of Puerto Rico and U.S. relations. It makes you reflect on how mainland Puerto Ricans can be complicit and how important it is for Puerto Ricans on the island be the ones who determine their fate and future. I commend Xochitl for such an undertaking and I will definitely be reading her future books. My final thoughts on this one are to read the book, heed the trigger warnings and don't be afraid to have the critical.conversations that this one will spark. Thanks to @flatironbooks for the gifted book.
Papi wasn't lying and Papi was probably the wisest character in the entire book. I wanted more of Papi, period.
I've been holding off on reading Olga Dies
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Dreaming because I wanted my own experience with it, raw and untainted. The marketing on this one is misleading. The description of the show is more accurate in that it's about two siblings living in gentrified Brooklyn. The beginning introduced me to lots of characters, mostly unlikable which I don't ever mind as long as it's leading somewhere. The first half felt like the soup was brewing but I didn't need the sazon, adobo, sofrito and the achiote at the same time. I don't fault the author for this but the editor dropped the ball because it felt a little too messy. However, Xochitl's ability to portray Brooklyn as its own character was brilliant. That was the journey that felt the most real to me. The character of Blanca was one of my favorites because she was the most developed and spoke so honestly about being Puerto Rican, expectations of women and motherhood and rips the bandaid off to uncover the true status of Puerto Rico. The Puerto Rican history and social commentary sprinkled throughout the pages is what gave this book its' unique flavor and why it is such a necessary read at this time.
The second half of the book completely boiled over and shifts the focus to a dark plot about Hurricane Maria, neocolonialism, revolution, corporate greed and violence in various forms. I felt triggered and disoriented because it was not a smooth transition but then again the U.S. violently occupied Puerto Rico, refuses to leave and continues to commit all types of genocide on the people of the island. To see the POV of the white rich people that continue to steal our land and livelihood is one that you often don't see in books today. Bravo to Xochitl for being bold in that choice.
Although, this book felt like two different books at the same time I appreciated what it had to say about motherhood, colonialism, liberation and gentrification.
To be clear, I did not hate this book. I think it is timely and necessary and speaks boldly about Puerto Rican history that has completely either been erased or whitewashed. I do think it offers much value. However, I would be remiss if I did not point out where this book had moments of insensitivity and got cringey.
This novel takes place in contemporary NY and the language choices around substance use, HIV awareness and sexual assault did not sit right with me because the instances added to more stigma rather than provide insight and empathy. It read like language that has been historically been used by elite Whites especially, to further marginalize certain groups and dehumanize them. Papi was repeatedly called a "junkie" or "crackhead" and dehumanized with no exploration into his backstop. His identity was that of having AIDS and being a drug user. The use of the word "AIDS" in such a violent way by several characters was off putting especially in the ways it was being weaponzied by the characters in 2017 setting. I see what the intent was but because the issues stayed surface level nothing new new was added to the narratives about substance use and HIV. In fact, it didn't even build empathy for the character who was most affected. Papi definitely didn't deserve that treatment as well. Therr is also a sexual assault that was also hard to read because of the choices that were made. It felt like the abuser got to walk away without repercussions and made it feel like dramatic effect only.
After all is said and done, Olga Dies Dreaming is effective in shedding light on the history of Puerto Rico and U.S. relations. It makes you reflect on how mainland Puerto Ricans can be complicit and how important it is for Puerto Ricans on the island be the ones who determine their fate and future. I commend Xochitl for such an undertaking and I will definitely be reading her future books. My final thoughts on this one are to read the book, heed the trigger warnings and don't be afraid to have the critical.conversations that this one will spark. Thanks to @flatironbooks for the gifted book.
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LibraryThing member SJGirl
I really enjoyed Olga, I liked that she has an edge to her, she does some sketchy things, she’s blunt, and I especially appreciated how her reluctant romance had a genuine warmth and comfort to it, I liked how okay they were with each other’s issues.
My only quibble with the Olga character
A closeted politician isn’t a particularly new concept, still I found Olga’s brother Prieto’s predicament compelling since he is that politician who does want to do good but his secret and the leverage it provides others stands in his way of doing so. I liked his growth over the course of the novel although I would have liked to see more with his daughter given her importance in his life (and the entertaining scene they do share) and it would have been good to have a glimpse of him in a romantic relationship, too.
I definitely would have preferred that deeper dive into Prieto’s personal life rather than the couple chapters given over to the POV of Olga’s occasional lover Dick. I never wanted to know him better, spending time in his head didn’t really add much to the story since it wasn’t like he had hidden depths unless you count him turning out to be even worse than suspected.
I felt similarly about Olga and Prieto’s mother at first, like her contributions in the form of letters were taking up space that I would have rather Olga or Prieto occupied but ultimately their mother’s part of the story proved to be vital to the makeup of who Olga and Prieto were and led to some emotionally satisfying family scenes.
My only quibble with the Olga character
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involved something that happens to her and while I know that in real life things do often go unpunished that just didn’t strike me as Olga’s style. Maybe nothing could be done lawfully, I don’t know, but she’s such a force through much of the book so it seemed odd that she wouldn’t retaliate in some fashion and a little disappointing for the reader not to see that character receive any comeuppance for their heinous actions. A closeted politician isn’t a particularly new concept, still I found Olga’s brother Prieto’s predicament compelling since he is that politician who does want to do good but his secret and the leverage it provides others stands in his way of doing so. I liked his growth over the course of the novel although I would have liked to see more with his daughter given her importance in his life (and the entertaining scene they do share) and it would have been good to have a glimpse of him in a romantic relationship, too.
I definitely would have preferred that deeper dive into Prieto’s personal life rather than the couple chapters given over to the POV of Olga’s occasional lover Dick. I never wanted to know him better, spending time in his head didn’t really add much to the story since it wasn’t like he had hidden depths unless you count him turning out to be even worse than suspected.
I felt similarly about Olga and Prieto’s mother at first, like her contributions in the form of letters were taking up space that I would have rather Olga or Prieto occupied but ultimately their mother’s part of the story proved to be vital to the makeup of who Olga and Prieto were and led to some emotionally satisfying family scenes.
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LibraryThing member froxgirl
This is a busy, funny, heartfelt comedic Puerto Rican family portrait featuring politics, careers, and a complicated family - just before Hurricane Maria devastates the island in 2017. Olga is a wedding planner with a TV slot, favored by the 1% client base, who should be thrilled with her success,
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but sees the shallow nature of her job and how her ambitions were co-opted by her need to make up for the absence of her mother, a revolutionary, and her father, dead from AIDS. She's in a warped relationship with a wealthy, cruel older businessman who wants to use her for his own perverse ends. Olga's brother, a congressman, is closeted and also motivated by longings for his missing mom. However, there's a warm and warring family of Abuelita and the many aunts and cousins to cheer the siblings on and to provide needed care and support. And then there's Matteo, the sock-with-sandals real estate agent Olga meets in a bar. There's also a wealth of humor and wisdom in this fast-moving novel. Show Less
LibraryThing member rmarcin
Olga and her brother Pedro are living in NY and are popular and successful. They still ache from their mother's decision to leave them and be an activist for Puerto Rico. While Olga tries to manage her love life, Pedro is a closeted gay man and a politician, afraid to admit his sexuality for fear
This is a novel about family, about political corruption, and about being true to yourself. It is at times funny and heartbreaking.
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of what may happen to his career. Others know, and have pressured him to vote for their projects, or they will expose him. Olga is forced by her mother to ask her former lover for a favor, and this is devastating for her. It aslo affects how she reacts to her new lover and his concern for her. This is a novel about family, about political corruption, and about being true to yourself. It is at times funny and heartbreaking.
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LibraryThing member brangwinn
This is a story easy to get caught up in. Its complex with strong characters about a Puerto Rican immigrant family in Brooklyn. Olga is a wedding planner. She’s learned to use the system to be connected to wealthy clients. She’s a tough businesswoman with a heart of gold for her family. I loved
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the opening where Olga is discussing how the quality of wedding napkins shows how Americans view wealth. She’d like to be the Puerto Rican version of Martha Stewart. Her brother, Prieto, has entered politics and has become a US Congressman. He vows to help Puerto Rican neighborhood, but his hidden homosexuality makes him hostage to people who are more interested in lining their own pockets. Their mother has left them to pursue the independence of Puerto Rico and the siblings were raised by their grandmother. Their father died of AIDS. As the story moves forward, Olga becomes more and more aware that her chasing of the American dream—money and fame, are not as important as her heritage. Coming to a head after the disastrous Hurricane Maria decimated Puerto Rico, Olga and Prieto are brought to the forefront in the humanitarian crisis and find out that their mother’s guerilla warfare against the system and her demand for Puerto Rican freedom make more and more sense as the Trump administration hands contracts, not to the capable, but to cronies who support Trump. Her views on the limitations of capitalism and political corruption are so well illustrated in this rich complex story. Almarie Guerra, Armando Riesco and Ines Del Castillo narrate the audio version and make the story even richer as they bring the characters to life Show Less
LibraryThing member ccayne
A good audio: plot driven, humor, conflict, morality and the good guys win.
LibraryThing member BibliLakayAyizan
2017. Olga is a successful wedding planner for the rich families of Manhattan. Pedro, her brother, is a popular congressman representing the people of Brooklyn. This is the face the Acevedo children choose to share with the public, as Puerto Rican descendants living the American dream. But behind
The book begins as a light romantic comedy : Olga is organizing a rich wedding, debating about the number of hand towels she should order. Things seem easy for that energetic and successful woman, owner of her own business. Olga is a very interesting character, fighting to realize her dreams and discover who she really is. But rapidly, the book becomes darker, deeper. As the pages turn, the story layers thicken. Olga, just her brother Pedro, are haunted by a distant mother, who abandoned them decades ago to follow her dreams of freedom and militant political cause.
The novel has all the elements for success : interesting main characters with dark secrets, an interesting plot and a relatively easy to read book. Despite all those elements it took me a while to really appreciate the book and really got into it after passing the ⅔. I enjoyed how the author explores the history and culture of Puerto Rico, as well as the political issues they endure. Olga dies dreaming highlights the prize of success and that sometimes real achievement doesn’t necessarily bring happinesses.
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the masks, things are not what they really seem. Family strife and political corruption are hidden in plain sight.The book begins as a light romantic comedy : Olga is organizing a rich wedding, debating about the number of hand towels she should order. Things seem easy for that energetic and successful woman, owner of her own business. Olga is a very interesting character, fighting to realize her dreams and discover who she really is. But rapidly, the book becomes darker, deeper. As the pages turn, the story layers thicken. Olga, just her brother Pedro, are haunted by a distant mother, who abandoned them decades ago to follow her dreams of freedom and militant political cause.
The novel has all the elements for success : interesting main characters with dark secrets, an interesting plot and a relatively easy to read book. Despite all those elements it took me a while to really appreciate the book and really got into it after passing the ⅔. I enjoyed how the author explores the history and culture of Puerto Rico, as well as the political issues they endure. Olga dies dreaming highlights the prize of success and that sometimes real achievement doesn’t necessarily bring happinesses.
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LibraryThing member quondame
The characters in this book are good, the pacing mostly works and politics make sense. A central romance seemed treated rather shallowly though considering the seriousness with which other inter-personal issues were handled, and a bit of an arbitrary safety net for the interesting Olga.
LibraryThing member Perednia
What at first glance appears to be the story of a high-end wedding planner and her Puerto Rican family in Brooklyn deepens into the saga of two siblings making sense of their legacy on many levels.
LibraryThing member juju2cat
The primary issue I see here is abandonment. When Prieto and Olga are at a tender age their mother abandons them and takes off to fight a revolution for justice in their homeland of Puerto Rico. The children's only contact with her is through occasional letters and is very much one sided. They have
Both are successful now but both have empty spaces in their hearts. Both have secrets.
I loved the spirit of neighborhood in this book. I loved that through all the angst and heartache that they always had each other.
Thank you to Bookreporter.com for a copy of my review.
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no idea where her location is. Family life is key to their future; a large house of relatives raising each other. Their father, though drug addicted and HIV positive, seems to be a calming influence on them until his existence is little more than trips to jail and a bed sit with a needle next to him on the side table.Both are successful now but both have empty spaces in their hearts. Both have secrets.
I loved the spirit of neighborhood in this book. I loved that through all the angst and heartache that they always had each other.
Thank you to Bookreporter.com for a copy of my review.
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LibraryThing member RidgewayGirl
Olga, born and raised in the Puerto Rican community in Brooklyn, is a successful wedding planner, adept at managing the often unreasonable expectations of New York's wealthiest brides. Her extended family is large and colorful, but her father died when she was young of an overdose and her mother
This is literary chick-lit, and I mean that in the best possible way. The novel is fun and expansive and written with a light touch that serves the sometimes serious subject matter well. Because along with brides behaving badly there are hurricanes and politicians being blackmailed and a lot about Puerto Rico and how it has been badly served by the United States. Olga is a wonderful introduction to a talented young author.
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left her and her brother to do political activism and only occasionally sends a letter. Olga is involved with a wealthy and newly divorced man who wants to take the next step, but she's not interested in entering his world and she's met an interesting guy in her neighborhood. This is literary chick-lit, and I mean that in the best possible way. The novel is fun and expansive and written with a light touch that serves the sometimes serious subject matter well. Because along with brides behaving badly there are hurricanes and politicians being blackmailed and a lot about Puerto Rico and how it has been badly served by the United States. Olga is a wonderful introduction to a talented young author.
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LibraryThing member elkiedee
The opening scene of this novel introduces Olga, a 40 year old woman, at a wedding, one that she has organised as a wedding planner for a very wealthy client. Her role is rather less glamorous than it sounds, and on the first page there is a discussion of the different quality of napkins, floor
This doesn't sound that interesting but the story quickly moves into a story of the effects of race and class and the complications of being Puerto Rican-American in New York City. Olga and her brother Prieto are highly educated at prestigious universities, and have built apparently very successful careers, but both are struggling with their family history and some difficult secrets. Prieto is a politician, and is worried about his family and some of his more socially conservative Puerto Rican voters discovering that he is gay. Olga is caught between competing demands from lots of different people and her own ideas of what she should be.
I really enjoyed this story of Olga and Prieto dealing with a new understanding of who they are and their own and their family's history, the mixture of serious issues with warmth and humour. I was interested to read about one of New York's largest ethnic minority communities and the complexity for the Acevedos of being both New Yorkers and Puerto Rican.
I found the story of their parents a bit more difficult. Their parents were revolutionary political activists and their mother left the family to go underground, and communicates with her children through a series of letters which are quite unpleasant in tone. Their father was more active in bringing them up but when he dropped out of political activity he ended up turning back to drugs and died young from AIDS contracted through injecting heroin, not helped by other health issues from his drug use. I think I'd have probably liked the political activist mother to across as a better human being and more caring parent.
There are also some nasty capitalist villains, and yes, that to me was a plus.
All in all, Olga Dies Dreaming is a great, thought provoking read.
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coverings and decor at wealthy people's weddings and those of ordinary people, even middle class people with good jobs.This doesn't sound that interesting but the story quickly moves into a story of the effects of race and class and the complications of being Puerto Rican-American in New York City. Olga and her brother Prieto are highly educated at prestigious universities, and have built apparently very successful careers, but both are struggling with their family history and some difficult secrets. Prieto is a politician, and is worried about his family and some of his more socially conservative Puerto Rican voters discovering that he is gay. Olga is caught between competing demands from lots of different people and her own ideas of what she should be.
I really enjoyed this story of Olga and Prieto dealing with a new understanding of who they are and their own and their family's history, the mixture of serious issues with warmth and humour. I was interested to read about one of New York's largest ethnic minority communities and the complexity for the Acevedos of being both New Yorkers and Puerto Rican.
I found the story of their parents a bit more difficult. Their parents were revolutionary political activists and their mother left the family to go underground, and communicates with her children through a series of letters which are quite unpleasant in tone. Their father was more active in bringing them up but when he dropped out of political activity he ended up turning back to drugs and died young from AIDS contracted through injecting heroin, not helped by other health issues from his drug use. I think I'd have probably liked the political activist mother to across as a better human being and more caring parent.
There are also some nasty capitalist villains, and yes, that to me was a plus.
All in all, Olga Dies Dreaming is a great, thought provoking read.
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LibraryThing member thewanderingjew
Olga Dies Dreaming: A Novel, Xochitl Gonzalez, author; Almarie Guerra, Ines del Castillo, Armando Riesco, narrators.
This book has garnered so many accolades that I thought I would absolutely love it, and I settled into reading it with great expectations. I am not sure what it is about this book
Basically, the book is about a family whose ancestors and immediate family originally came from Puerto Rico. The author presents a great deal of history about the country. The lives of these characters seem to be filled with disappointment in this, their adopted country, and also in the way it has established its rule and control of Puerto Rico. Their mother wants to free the country from colonization and seems to be willing to do anything to accomplish this goal, even breaking the law and causing death and destruction. She is manipulative and very extreme in her views.
Pietro and Olga have grown up with a father who was addicted to drugs and died of Aids and a mother who abandoned them to start a band of revolutionaries in a remote area of Puerto Rico. How they handled the emotional trauma of their lives is described in detail. How they handled capitalism is another issue they struggle with, since although they enjoy the fruits of their labor, they often resent how their money is made and those who have more than they do. The class divide is a major thorn in their backs. What comes through as a main message in this novel is their ultimate dislike of our Capitalist society.
Olga is a wedding planner and Pietro is a politician. Their relationship with each other is close but sometimes also is rocky and fraught with secrets. Peitro’s sexual orientation is hidden, though it is not a well kept secret, and Olga’s sexual promiscuity is not a secret at all. Both of them engage with less than reputable characters, conducting borderline criminal activity, or outright criminal activity, to benefit their lifestyles. They seem eager to find and accept excuses for their illicit behavior.
There is not one progressive message left out of this novel, and if you are not progressive in the extreme, you may find it offensive and be unable to complete the reading of it. However, those who believe in the cancel culture and the demonization of America, as opposed to loving the country and its democracy, should adore the author and the book. Only one character seems to be very likeable, and that is Mateo, who although troubled emotionally, is the only character not engaged in any behavior that is intentionally meant to hurt another. He seems without anger, though he is bereft about his mother’s passing and has never fully recovered from the loss. There is also, perhaps, one aunt who is less distasteful than the rest.
Olga, especially, accepts little responsibility for her wanton an selfish behavior, believing it is her right to conduct herself in any manner she chooses, leaving disappointed men and friends in her wake. She engages with unsavory characters to fill her coffers even as she rejects the idea of capitalism being a worthy pursuit. Olga takes the reader into 2025 when her mother, perhaps unhinged, finally commits an act of sabotage so great, but not unexpected, that she is horrified. Her reaction to her mother’s crime, however, may startle some readers.
The reader is constantly subjected to a hate-filled, insulting dialogue that I found hard to absorb and many may also feel the same way. I wondered why anyone in America would laud a book that hates America with so much passion and belittles its policies and accomplishments with so much fury. The disgraceful comments about the unnamed President in 2017, whom everyone will recognize, were so radical and politically biased, the author should possibly have edited them out, or at the very least, felt shame writing them. Instead, the left wing of the publishing industry promoted her anger and her hate, as well as her “woke” agenda and narrative that grew more hypocritical as the book developed.
The author falsely blames the conservatives for the disgraceful cancel culture, after Olga’s business began to fail because of her remarks made during a television interview about America and its response to Hurricane Maria, which destroyed parts of Puerto Rico. Yet it is well known that the only ones canceling speech and personalities, are the Progessives and Democrats. They have also engaged in canceling all opposing views, which is exactly what Olga and Pietro’s mother would like to accomplish in Puerto Rico.
Every dysfunctional aspect of society is promoted or sponsored by the narrative, and the blame for anything Olga or Pietro dislike is placed squarely on the shoulders of the right side of politics. The two of them believe in random, perhaps unprotected sex, and one of them suffers the consequences. The book promotes racial animus, points fingers at white nationalists, and supports the idea that the approach to natural disasters on the island, that are not given the attention they deserve because they are not gringos, coupled with corporate greed, is responsible for Puerto Rico’s failures and lack of advancement as a country. The fact that Olga had been greedy, while living a successful if not necessarily totally honest life, and Prieto had advanced to an elected position of power, even as he behaved irresponsibly, and often dishonestly, was largely treated as acceptable and normal. Both had their behavior praised by left wing moderators as in the comment about “truthtelling” by the author, regardless of whether that idea even was truthful. Furthermore, Don Lemon is good and FOX NEWS is evil which tells you that the author is not hiding her bias at all. In addition, the narrator’s tone is so sarcastic when speaking about the right, and so heartfelt when speaking about the left, that she is also prejudiced even as she does an admirable job with the audio.
With less than 100 pages to read, I almost gave up on the book. It appeared to be nothing more than a Progressive treatise that trashes President Trump mercilessly and disrespectfully and promotes revolution to right their perceived wrongs. One character even shamefully calls Trump a useful idiot, which is an oxymoron since the Democrats, in 2020, in a highly controversial election, have actually elected, perhaps, the only useful idiot ever before to live in the White House. No references to the current left-wing failures are address, although the book travels to 2025, since it is obvious that the author is a “woke” socialist. She makes no attempt to hide it.
The book is for a particular audience of radical progressives who bridge no compromise and no conversation of alternate views. Since I am not in that category, I literally felt assaulted by this book’s message and horrified that the author shows no gratitude whatsoever for the benefits this country has provided herself and her ancestral homeland. This is a political book that seems to encourage the overthrow of American control in Puerto Rico by any means, violent or peaceful.
This country provides opportunities for millions of people who risk their lives to arrive on these shores. I was stunned that the author portrayed America and its leaders so deplorably. Capitalism is described as the enemy of Puerto Ricans, even as they continue to come here to advance in our economic system. The author uses a despicable term to describe people of Puerto Rican descent, a word that I have not heard in decades. I lived in Brooklyn and only coarse, ignorant and crude people used it. However, this author thinks nothing of describing white people as “gringos” who are bad. Gringos are racist. Gringos are white and evil. Why does a white population not object to this kind of thinking?
The characters had no code of ethics or sense of morality. They appreciated nothing in their lives and seemed bent on trashing America only for their lack of success. Puerto Rico’s failure to advance is blamed not on Puerto Rico’s policies, or Puerto Ricans, but on America and Americans. I found the author to be too angry and too strident in her approach. The following are some of the themes and characters presented throughout. Olga stands for personal freedom and reproductive rights. She is angry because her mother walked out. Prieto is trying to fit in and is for improving the environment and the LGBTQ+ community. However he is in the closet. Christian is black and gay and he commits suicide to illustrate the emotional consequence of being gay in America. Mateo is a hoarder, but honorable, and is also Jewish. He was devastated by his mother’s death and has not really recovered. Mr. Blumenthal is an elite, greedy businessman. To say more, would be futile. If you enjoy reading about these things, you will enjoy the book.
This book has garnered so many accolades that I thought I would absolutely love it, and I settled into reading it with great expectations. I am not sure what it is about this book
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that is so beloved, by so many, because I was disappointed with the language, which was foul, and the message which was highly anti-America. I can understand the author’s desire to promote Puerto Rican independence, however, I cannot understand, and I find it very hard to tolerate, her abject hatred for some of America’s leaders and for American leadership, the very obvious major theme of the book.Basically, the book is about a family whose ancestors and immediate family originally came from Puerto Rico. The author presents a great deal of history about the country. The lives of these characters seem to be filled with disappointment in this, their adopted country, and also in the way it has established its rule and control of Puerto Rico. Their mother wants to free the country from colonization and seems to be willing to do anything to accomplish this goal, even breaking the law and causing death and destruction. She is manipulative and very extreme in her views.
Pietro and Olga have grown up with a father who was addicted to drugs and died of Aids and a mother who abandoned them to start a band of revolutionaries in a remote area of Puerto Rico. How they handled the emotional trauma of their lives is described in detail. How they handled capitalism is another issue they struggle with, since although they enjoy the fruits of their labor, they often resent how their money is made and those who have more than they do. The class divide is a major thorn in their backs. What comes through as a main message in this novel is their ultimate dislike of our Capitalist society.
Olga is a wedding planner and Pietro is a politician. Their relationship with each other is close but sometimes also is rocky and fraught with secrets. Peitro’s sexual orientation is hidden, though it is not a well kept secret, and Olga’s sexual promiscuity is not a secret at all. Both of them engage with less than reputable characters, conducting borderline criminal activity, or outright criminal activity, to benefit their lifestyles. They seem eager to find and accept excuses for their illicit behavior.
There is not one progressive message left out of this novel, and if you are not progressive in the extreme, you may find it offensive and be unable to complete the reading of it. However, those who believe in the cancel culture and the demonization of America, as opposed to loving the country and its democracy, should adore the author and the book. Only one character seems to be very likeable, and that is Mateo, who although troubled emotionally, is the only character not engaged in any behavior that is intentionally meant to hurt another. He seems without anger, though he is bereft about his mother’s passing and has never fully recovered from the loss. There is also, perhaps, one aunt who is less distasteful than the rest.
Olga, especially, accepts little responsibility for her wanton an selfish behavior, believing it is her right to conduct herself in any manner she chooses, leaving disappointed men and friends in her wake. She engages with unsavory characters to fill her coffers even as she rejects the idea of capitalism being a worthy pursuit. Olga takes the reader into 2025 when her mother, perhaps unhinged, finally commits an act of sabotage so great, but not unexpected, that she is horrified. Her reaction to her mother’s crime, however, may startle some readers.
The reader is constantly subjected to a hate-filled, insulting dialogue that I found hard to absorb and many may also feel the same way. I wondered why anyone in America would laud a book that hates America with so much passion and belittles its policies and accomplishments with so much fury. The disgraceful comments about the unnamed President in 2017, whom everyone will recognize, were so radical and politically biased, the author should possibly have edited them out, or at the very least, felt shame writing them. Instead, the left wing of the publishing industry promoted her anger and her hate, as well as her “woke” agenda and narrative that grew more hypocritical as the book developed.
The author falsely blames the conservatives for the disgraceful cancel culture, after Olga’s business began to fail because of her remarks made during a television interview about America and its response to Hurricane Maria, which destroyed parts of Puerto Rico. Yet it is well known that the only ones canceling speech and personalities, are the Progessives and Democrats. They have also engaged in canceling all opposing views, which is exactly what Olga and Pietro’s mother would like to accomplish in Puerto Rico.
Every dysfunctional aspect of society is promoted or sponsored by the narrative, and the blame for anything Olga or Pietro dislike is placed squarely on the shoulders of the right side of politics. The two of them believe in random, perhaps unprotected sex, and one of them suffers the consequences. The book promotes racial animus, points fingers at white nationalists, and supports the idea that the approach to natural disasters on the island, that are not given the attention they deserve because they are not gringos, coupled with corporate greed, is responsible for Puerto Rico’s failures and lack of advancement as a country. The fact that Olga had been greedy, while living a successful if not necessarily totally honest life, and Prieto had advanced to an elected position of power, even as he behaved irresponsibly, and often dishonestly, was largely treated as acceptable and normal. Both had their behavior praised by left wing moderators as in the comment about “truthtelling” by the author, regardless of whether that idea even was truthful. Furthermore, Don Lemon is good and FOX NEWS is evil which tells you that the author is not hiding her bias at all. In addition, the narrator’s tone is so sarcastic when speaking about the right, and so heartfelt when speaking about the left, that she is also prejudiced even as she does an admirable job with the audio.
With less than 100 pages to read, I almost gave up on the book. It appeared to be nothing more than a Progressive treatise that trashes President Trump mercilessly and disrespectfully and promotes revolution to right their perceived wrongs. One character even shamefully calls Trump a useful idiot, which is an oxymoron since the Democrats, in 2020, in a highly controversial election, have actually elected, perhaps, the only useful idiot ever before to live in the White House. No references to the current left-wing failures are address, although the book travels to 2025, since it is obvious that the author is a “woke” socialist. She makes no attempt to hide it.
The book is for a particular audience of radical progressives who bridge no compromise and no conversation of alternate views. Since I am not in that category, I literally felt assaulted by this book’s message and horrified that the author shows no gratitude whatsoever for the benefits this country has provided herself and her ancestral homeland. This is a political book that seems to encourage the overthrow of American control in Puerto Rico by any means, violent or peaceful.
This country provides opportunities for millions of people who risk their lives to arrive on these shores. I was stunned that the author portrayed America and its leaders so deplorably. Capitalism is described as the enemy of Puerto Ricans, even as they continue to come here to advance in our economic system. The author uses a despicable term to describe people of Puerto Rican descent, a word that I have not heard in decades. I lived in Brooklyn and only coarse, ignorant and crude people used it. However, this author thinks nothing of describing white people as “gringos” who are bad. Gringos are racist. Gringos are white and evil. Why does a white population not object to this kind of thinking?
The characters had no code of ethics or sense of morality. They appreciated nothing in their lives and seemed bent on trashing America only for their lack of success. Puerto Rico’s failure to advance is blamed not on Puerto Rico’s policies, or Puerto Ricans, but on America and Americans. I found the author to be too angry and too strident in her approach. The following are some of the themes and characters presented throughout. Olga stands for personal freedom and reproductive rights. She is angry because her mother walked out. Prieto is trying to fit in and is for improving the environment and the LGBTQ+ community. However he is in the closet. Christian is black and gay and he commits suicide to illustrate the emotional consequence of being gay in America. Mateo is a hoarder, but honorable, and is also Jewish. He was devastated by his mother’s death and has not really recovered. Mr. Blumenthal is an elite, greedy businessman. To say more, would be futile. If you enjoy reading about these things, you will enjoy the book.
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LibraryThing member Castlelass
This book starts off with a discussion of napkins at a rich person’s wedding, so I anticipated this book would probably not be my cup of tea and it was not. It is an odd combination of melodramatic romance and social commentary regarding Puerto Rican issues. It is not really young adult from a
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content perspective, but it reads like a YA romance. I rolled my eyes many times at the dialogue. It is unfocused and too long. File this in the category of “good idea – bad execution.” If you like contemporary stories that check all the “currently trending” boxes, you may enjoy this more than I did. Show Less
LibraryThing member Hccpsk
I definitely could have lived without the overly long political diatribes sprinkled throughout, but Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez wouldn’t be the same book without them and I can live with that. Olga seems to be living the high life as one of New York’s most sought-after wedding
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planners, but her life has always been overshadowed by her mother who abandoned their family when Olga was young to pursue her radical political agenda. She and her brother, now a congressman, have spent their lives trying to impress their absent mother, but also represent the Puerto Rican pride she instilled in them. Olga Dies Dreaming follows the siblings during a time of political unrest when their mother and all she represents reenters their lives and reeks havoc — both professionally and personally. Gonzalez has written a memorable, multi-faceted character and given her great history and plot to create an excellent novel well worth the read. Show Less
LibraryThing member kayanelson
2023 TOB—this book served two purposes. It tells the story of the Acevedo family and the story of Puerto Rico.
Olga and her brother Pedro were abandoned by their mother as adolescents. Their mother became a Puerto Rican revolutionary. Olga is a high class wedding planner, a sell out according to
The story of Puerto Rico was much more interesting. It’s embarrassing for me to admit, how little I know of it. This book has inspired me to learn more and understand more too.
Olga and her brother Pedro were abandoned by their mother as adolescents. Their mother became a Puerto Rican revolutionary. Olga is a high class wedding planner, a sell out according to
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letters by her mother and Pedro is a politician who doesn’t do enough for Puerto Rico. I really didn’t like their stories which is why this book is only getting 3 stars. I truly didn’t care what happened to them.The story of Puerto Rico was much more interesting. It’s embarrassing for me to admit, how little I know of it. This book has inspired me to learn more and understand more too.
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LibraryThing member janismack
Olga and her brother Prieto live in New York. He is a popular congressman and she is a successful wedding planner. Their mother is Blanca a Young lord turned radical that left her children when they were in their early teens to be raised by their grandmother. Their mother comes back into their
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lives after hurricane Maria devastates the island of Puerto Rico. Their lives are turned upside down. Show Less
LibraryThing member bookczuk
Love a well written book that both draws me in, teaches me something, helps me to understand the world better, and advocates for change. 2023 read.
LibraryThing member whitreidtan
Reading allows us to experience lives nothing like our own. Am I a high society wedding planner of Puerto Rican descent? Am I the child of a drug addicted father with AIDS and a militant activist mother who abandoned me to be raised by my grandmother when I was a young teen? Am I trying to figure
Olga is a wedding planner for the rich and famous after having been featured on a reality tv show. She is incredibly sought after and successful, even if she sometimes pads her bills or overbuys and charges her clients for these "mistakes." Her brother Prieto is a Congressman representing a gentrifying LatinX neighborhood, one that, at least initially, thinks he hung the moon and is undeniably one of them. Olga and Prieto have a close knit sibling relationship but that doesn't mean they don't have secrets from each other. And their secrets are big ones. The person who seems to know both of their secrets is their absent mother, Blanca, who sends them well-informed letters when either of them make choices that stray from the path she wants them to tread, the path that she herself has taken, backing, and, if necessary, fighting for an independent Puerto Rico. As Hurricane Maria barrels down on Puerto Rico and then in its devastating aftermath, both siblings will face reckonings.
Gonzalez has drawn complex and interesting characters in this personal and political family drama. She liberally sprinkles political and historical information throughout the novel, some of which is organic and some of which felt a little forced. She tackles immigrant life and expectations, classism and capitalism, racism, political corruption, the Puerto Rican Independence movement, family trauma, and oppression as her characters look to find themselves and face the difficult things that their pasts have contributed to even as they come to terms with their Puerto Rican heritage. The story bogs down in the middle and the pacing remains mostly slow. The ending, which is set in 2025, picks up the pace but is a bit of a neatly tied bow. It does give a sense of how Olga and Prieto have grown and come into the truth of themselves and imagines an interesting ending/beginning for Puerto Rico. I mostly enjoyed this novel but I had to refresh myself on it to write this review so there was nothing special enough to stick with me long term.
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out my life, my relationships, and where my heart is? OK, maybe yes to that last one but definitely no to the first two scenarios. And yet, in reading Xochitl Gonzalez's novel Olga Dies Dreaming, I can step into the shoes of a character who answers yes to all of these questions as she tries to figure out what the American Dream really means and who it applies to.Olga is a wedding planner for the rich and famous after having been featured on a reality tv show. She is incredibly sought after and successful, even if she sometimes pads her bills or overbuys and charges her clients for these "mistakes." Her brother Prieto is a Congressman representing a gentrifying LatinX neighborhood, one that, at least initially, thinks he hung the moon and is undeniably one of them. Olga and Prieto have a close knit sibling relationship but that doesn't mean they don't have secrets from each other. And their secrets are big ones. The person who seems to know both of their secrets is their absent mother, Blanca, who sends them well-informed letters when either of them make choices that stray from the path she wants them to tread, the path that she herself has taken, backing, and, if necessary, fighting for an independent Puerto Rico. As Hurricane Maria barrels down on Puerto Rico and then in its devastating aftermath, both siblings will face reckonings.
Gonzalez has drawn complex and interesting characters in this personal and political family drama. She liberally sprinkles political and historical information throughout the novel, some of which is organic and some of which felt a little forced. She tackles immigrant life and expectations, classism and capitalism, racism, political corruption, the Puerto Rican Independence movement, family trauma, and oppression as her characters look to find themselves and face the difficult things that their pasts have contributed to even as they come to terms with their Puerto Rican heritage. The story bogs down in the middle and the pacing remains mostly slow. The ending, which is set in 2025, picks up the pace but is a bit of a neatly tied bow. It does give a sense of how Olga and Prieto have grown and come into the truth of themselves and imagines an interesting ending/beginning for Puerto Rico. I mostly enjoyed this novel but I had to refresh myself on it to write this review so there was nothing special enough to stick with me long term.
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LibraryThing member reader1009
fiction - Puerto Rican family comedy with romance - successful, independent wedding planner living in Brooklyn.
LibraryThing member BookConcierge
2.5*** rounded up
I received an ARC from Flatiron books. Book’s scheduled publications date is Jan 2022.
From the book jacket: It’s 2017, and Olga and her brother Pedro “Prieto” Acevedo, are gold-faced names in their hometown of New York. Prieto is a popular congressman representing their
My reactions
I really wanted to like this. I’d heard the author in a virtual event and felt her enthusiasm for the story and for her characters. I liked that her focus was on two successful siblings and their rise to those positions, despite parents who abandoned them and left them in the care of their loving grandmother. I liked Gonzalez’s stated focus on social issues of gentrification and the resulting displacement of families struggling to find affordable housing in an urban landscape, not to mention the changes to the neighborhoods that the influx of dollars bring. And on the personal issue of living up to expectations – of our parents, our friends, our community, ourselves – and the struggle to find one’s own path.
But I found a book with rather unlikeable characters that I just never quite connected to. I felt the “bad guys” in the book were the easy stereotypical “big business” villains. (And, yes, I know they exist and do great damage in the name of profits, but still…) And the whole intrigue with the Acevedo siblings’ mother – a revolutionary living in the mountains of Puerto Rico – never quite clicked with me either.
I did like the relationship between Prieto and Olga, though I didn’t really warm to either one of them. And I really liked Matteo and how he balanced Olga’s temperament. This is a mature man, with flaws, but still open and honest and willing to talk!
I received an ARC from Flatiron books. Book’s scheduled publications date is Jan 2022.
From the book jacket: It’s 2017, and Olga and her brother Pedro “Prieto” Acevedo, are gold-faced names in their hometown of New York. Prieto is a popular congressman representing their
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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. My reactions
I really wanted to like this. I’d heard the author in a virtual event and felt her enthusiasm for the story and for her characters. I liked that her focus was on two successful siblings and their rise to those positions, despite parents who abandoned them and left them in the care of their loving grandmother. I liked Gonzalez’s stated focus on social issues of gentrification and the resulting displacement of families struggling to find affordable housing in an urban landscape, not to mention the changes to the neighborhoods that the influx of dollars bring. And on the personal issue of living up to expectations – of our parents, our friends, our community, ourselves – and the struggle to find one’s own path.
But I found a book with rather unlikeable characters that I just never quite connected to. I felt the “bad guys” in the book were the easy stereotypical “big business” villains. (And, yes, I know they exist and do great damage in the name of profits, but still…) And the whole intrigue with the Acevedo siblings’ mother – a revolutionary living in the mountains of Puerto Rico – never quite clicked with me either.
I did like the relationship between Prieto and Olga, though I didn’t really warm to either one of them. And I really liked Matteo and how he balanced Olga’s temperament. This is a mature man, with flaws, but still open and honest and willing to talk!
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LibraryThing member DKnight0918
Took me a while to finish it but I liked it.
Awards
The Morning News Tournament of Books (Short List — 2023)
New York City Book Award (2023)
Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize (Longlist — Fiction — 2022)
NPR: Books We Love (2022)
The New York Times Notable Books of the Year (Fiction/Poetry — 2022)
All Connecticut Reads (Shortlist — 2023)
Los Angeles Public Library Best of the Year (Fiction — 2022)
Chicago Public Library Best of the Best: Adults (Selection — 2022)
BBC 50 Best Books of 2022 (2022)
Original language
English
Original publication date
2022-01-04
Physical description
384 p.; 9.5 inches
ISBN
1250786177 / 9781250786173