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Olga Dies Dreaming: A Novel Kindle Edition
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK · WINNER OF THE BROOKLYN PUBLIC LIBRARY PRIZE • INTERNATIONAL LATINO BOOK AWARD FINALIST
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
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: Kirkus, Washington Post, TIME, NPR, Vogue, Esquire, Book Riot, Goodreads, EW, Reader's Digest, and more!
"Don’t underestimate this new novelist. She’s jump-starting the year with a smart romantic comedy that lures us in with laughter and keeps us hooked with a fantastically engaging story." —The Washington Post
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.
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherFlatiron Books
- Publication dateJanuary 4, 2022
- File size3149 KB
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From the Publisher
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Review
Indie Next Selection for January 2022
Book of the Month Club Selection
"Atmospheric, intelligent, and well informed: an impressive debut." ― Kirkus, starred review
"Olga Dies Dreaming is a beautiful force ― completely unique in its intricacies yet universal in the characters’ desires to be loved and understood." ― Associated Press
"A fantastically engaging story...Rarely does a novel, particularly a debut novel, contend so powerfully and so delightfully with such a vast web of personal, cultural, political and even international imperatives." ―The Washington Post
"[An] edifying debut... Gonzalez elevates this family drama with a great deal of insight on the characters’ diaspora and politics." ― Publishers Weekly
"A wonderful and thought-provoking story..." ― BookRiot
"Olga Dies Dreaming intricately presents its flawed characters working through the meaning of cultural identity, family secrets, grief, and self-preservation. Their stories capture the ways in which we sometimes define ourselves by how others see us ― to often painful ends." ― Book of the Month
"Xochitl Gonzalez delivers a healthy dose of tough love with her buzzy debut Olga Dies Dreaming." ― TIME
"In her ambitious debut novel, Gonzalez explores such weighty topics as coercion, rape, gentrification, and the colonial exploitation...Shining throughout, however, is the redeeming quality of love in all its iterations: romantic, fraternal, paternal, patriotic, and ultimately, love of self." ― Booklist
"Vibrant and raw...Olga Dies Dreaming delivers a roller coaster’s worth of beautiful highs and lows. All told, it’s an experience worth savoring." ― BookPage
“Hilarious… A sprawling dramedy of love, politics, blackmail and real estate featuring a Puerto Rican family in Brooklyn." ― People
"The extraordinary accomplishment of Olga Dies Dreaming is in how a familiar-enough tale―a woman seeking love, happiness, and fulfillment in the big city―slowly reveals itself to be something else altogether. It’s a book about a New York that isn’t always celebrated, the one that belongs to immigrant communities; about money, class, and political power; about one vividly-imagined family and the very idea of the American Dream." ― Rumaan Alam, author of Leave the World Behind
"In this sparkling debut, Gonzalez digs deep into the damaged heart of a family, ably dissecting the knottiness of conditional love, identity, loyalty, secrets and the very definition of home. That she manages to cover so much ground with wisdom, tenderness and abundant humor makes this book a complete joy, and I will think about its richly drawn, deeply human characters for a very long time." ― Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney, author of The Nest and Good Company
“Olga Dies Dreaming is the story of an imperfect family shattered by secrets, grief, and abandonment, and of people who rise up, refusing to be broken. Smart, witty, and driven, Gonzalez’s Olga hustles, stumbles, falls, and eventually finds her way. An unflinching examination of capitalism, corruption, gentrification, colonialism, and their effects on marginalized people, Olga Dies Dreaming is a poignant, scalding debut.” ― Jaquira Díaz, author of Ordinary Girls
“Olga Dies Dreaming is as funny as it is insightful, as deft as it is original. In this impressive debut, Xochitl Gonzalez displays a gift for capturing the absurdity in the fabric of life. Wit and wisdom rarely combine in such a powerful one-two punch.” ― Mat Johnson, author of Pym and Loving Day
“Olga Dies Dreaming is a love letter to Brooklyn brimming with the best music, with dreams and sorrows―the stuff of real life. At turns hilarious and heartbreaking, Gonzalez gives us a gripping novel about community, family, betrayal, and the complicated inheritance of diaspora―a wild and ambitious saga that shows once again how the personal is always deeply political. An unforgettable story about finding and defending home." ― Jennine Capó Crucet, author of My Time Among The Whites
About the Author
Product details
- ASIN : B0927CZS7N
- Publisher : Flatiron Books (January 4, 2022)
- Publication date : January 4, 2022
- Language : English
- File size : 3149 KB
- Text-to-Speech : Enabled
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Sticky notes : On Kindle Scribe
- Print length : 353 pages
- Page numbers source ISBN : 0349726671
- Best Sellers Rank: #18,695 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #16 in Hispanic American Literature
- #20 in Hispanic American Literature & Fiction
- #64 in Sibling Fiction
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
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.
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Olga’s emotional journey is fascinating and the author writes her story beautifully. The book was structured nicely and I liked how the past was interwoven with the present. The characters are complex and flawed and the relationship dynamics work well throughout. I also really enjoyed learning more about Puerto Rico and how much injustice the country has faced. From what I can tell, the author remains factual in her discussion of the political issues going on in Puerto Rico even though the book itself is fiction.
There were two niggles that kept this from being a 5-star read…
The underlying political vibes occasionally became so prevalent they disrupted the flow of the story. As I’ve said before, if I wanted a political agenda, I’d turn on the news. Secondly, the author seemed confused…as if she couldn’t quite decide if the book was a light-hearted romance or a serious political and economic commentary. The plots awkwardly vacillates between the two genres. This “genre confusion” causes the story to feel slightly muddled and lacking in focus
Despite my criticism, I enjoyed the book and recommend to those who enjoy learning about other cultures!
But that was in the past. Now Olga runs the most successful wedding planning business in New York. Still living in Brooklyn where she grew up, her brother is now representing the neighborhood on the City Council and running for Congress. They have both grown up successfully except....
Except Olga, while she has plenty of male attention, never lets anyone get close. Except her brother is in the closet about his sexuality and worried that he also might have AIDS. Except their mother is now writing and making demands on the children she knows she miss her and want to please her. Can Olga find a way to fix all these issues?
This debut novel was a New York Times Notable Book as well as winning several other literary prizes and garnering praise from many sources. It is a romantic book that delves into serious issues and brings the tribulations of the Puerto Rican existence into prominence. Olga starts as a closed off woman haunted by her past and as she changes and opens herself to love and family, she blossoms and the reader is allowed to ride along. This book is recommended for readers of multicultural novels and women's fiction.