50 books like Ander and Santi Were Here

We love a deconstructed fairytale, and even better if it’s RE-constructed right afterward! 

Who doesn’t love an anxious Prince Charming who falls directly off his horse? Let alone his slobby yet sexily competent True Love. This book was a heartwarming character study of the two leads, as well as a swoony romance that scratched all the reality TV itches we had. We loved the tropes, the wit, and the earnestness of a happily ever after that truly believes in itself, no matter how fantastical the odds.

If you’re looking for a very sweet queer YA romance in a super original fantasy world, this is a great pick. I really loved the politics surrounding magic and how Lukens used those to drive the story. Tal is a real sweetheart protagonist who immediately pulls you in, makes you feel comfortable, and pulls you along for the ride. Another thing I appreciated about this book was the relationships between Tal and his siblings. At its heart, In Deeper Waters is a story about finding your own place in the world when the tide gets high, and I can really relate to that. 

This author is an auto-buy for me, and I could not put this book down as I expected. Unfortunately, I did end up having to put it down with 20 pages left because it was way too late at night, and it was SO HARD to do that, but when I picked it up again the next morning, those last 20 pages were fantastic. (I remember laughing out loud multiple times during my reading.)

The relationship between the Main and his stepdad was parenting goals. I loved that I fell in love with the Love-Interest at the same time as the Main. He was incredibly charming, and I thought it was very cool how we didn’t fully get to see that as a reader until the Main saw it.

Let’s get this out of the way: Funny? Yes. Tragic? Yes.

This post-apocalyptic (not dystopian) novel about two boys who find each other after a virus has ravaged the world reminded me of what was most important in life.

It was an exciting, propulsive read that I absolutely devoured in a day or two. It not only met my expectations for the genre but exceeded them.

Angelina M. Lopez is my all-time favorite romance author. With beautiful prose and incredible wit, she always delivers on the steamy as well as the positive representation of Latina women.

After Hours on Milagro Street is her latest release featuring a fire-cracker, prickly heroine clad with tattoos and a partially-shaved head. Dead-set on saving the family bar, the only person standing in her way is an incredibly hot professor wanting to turn the bar into a historical museum. 

This book has a special place in my heart because it takes place in small-town Kansas, highlighting the little-known vibrant Mexican-American communities that settled here with the railroads and have stayed for generations. 

Come for the feels and history, and stay for the scorching-hot steamy scenes with the hot professor. 

If you are like me, you enjoy stories about grandparents. This book is about a granddaughter's relationship with her grandmother, and the embarrassment she feels about the yellow handkerchief her grandmother uses.

I love everything Cynthia Alonso illustrates, and this book is no exception. The illustrations are playful and colorful, depicting the bond between these two characters in a beautiful way. I also like that the text includes some Spanish words.

In the end, the character realizes that her grandmother's yellow handkerchief makes her unique, and the legacy is passed on, a beautiful takeaway.

Cities all over the country were busy wrecking their own architectural heritage in the mid-20th century during the heyday of “slum clearance,” but Tucson experienced an especially painful loss: multiple blocks of irreplaceable colonial townhouses in Barro Viejo turned to dust for the sake of an ugly convention center.

Lydia Otero explains how and why this was allowed to happen with the exactitude of a scholar and the muted outrage of one who came from the community mourning the loss.

I love this book because it was one of the first scholarly works to consider what is now commonly accepted among researchers of US-Mexican relations: that borders are fluid.

This thin volume gives a concise history of the US-Mexico border. It treats border zones as distinct, rather than peripheral, spaces in the nation. In the case of the United States and Mexico, the border region is neither American nor Mexican but rather an amalgamation of both. The implicit statement being, of course, that treating the physical border between the two countries as rigid and categorical is fallacious.

I also love this book because it debunks the almost predetermined ways in which borders are viewed. Instead of prescribed lines on a map that make perfect sense on the ground, borders are moving (sometimes literally, often times figuratively), and fashioned by various demographic, economic, political, and military factors. A foundational book for… show more.

Vallejo painstakingly lays out the way some Mexican Americans, usually the poorest of the minorities, struggle to make it into a specifically American middle class. She details how these Latinas/Latinos carefully shape themselves, and in turn are shaped by corporate and state interests, into an ethnicity that is for the most part deracinated and stripped of their more obvious “ethnic” attributes (as a small example, most drop the accent marks in their names). For my book, a look at the middle-class Latinx is a look at the desires and strivings of Latina writers and characters of Chica Lit. 

Speaking of humans at the center of immigration, this book gives voice to Mexican immigrants throughout the 20th century.

The book showcases retablos, which are small paintings (often on pieces of tin no larger than 6” x 8”) commissioned by migrants and their families that give thanks for overcoming the struggles of immigrating to and living in the United States. Religious in symbolism and message, retablos are essentially pictorial prayers.

Many migrants leave no records of their efforts to cross the border; leaving a paper trail is dangerous if they enter the United States undocumented. In this sense, retablos are some of the few sources that document the dangers of immigration from migrants’ perspectives. This book helped humanize my analysis of immigration in US-Mexico relations.