GuiltyFeat | Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez - Book review @GuiltyFeat | Uploaded February 2023 | Updated October 2024, 8 hours ago.
It's the easiest thing in the world to hate on something and just get angry and ranty about it on camera. I try not to read too many books that I think I'm going to hate, so that when it happens, it takes me a little by surprise.
"Olga Dies Dreaming" is one of the books in this year's Tournament of Books, so I was happy to pick it up second hand with the understanding that at its very worst it would be unappealing and meh. It was so much worse for me than that. Every year publishers look at MFA graduates and select the most commercially ethnic among them and squeeze out another book club read.
I want to read more diversely. I am here for stories by authors from backgrounds that are very different to mine writing tales from their community and finding the universal truth about our shared humanity. This was not that. This was performative ethnicity for middle class, mostly white readers.
If someone has a good recommendation for a modern literary work from an author writing about Puerto Rican Americans and their community, I would love to have it.
It's the easiest thing in the world to hate on something and just get angry and ranty about it on camera. I try not to read too many books that I think I'm going to hate, so that when it happens, it takes me a little by surprise.
"Olga Dies Dreaming" is one of the books in this year's Tournament of Books, so I was happy to pick it up second hand with the understanding that at its very worst it would be unappealing and meh. It was so much worse for me than that. Every year publishers look at MFA graduates and select the most commercially ethnic among them and squeeze out another book club read.
I want to read more diversely. I am here for stories by authors from backgrounds that are very different to mine writing tales from their community and finding the universal truth about our shared humanity. This was not that. This was performative ethnicity for middle class, mostly white readers.
If someone has a good recommendation for a modern literary work from an author writing about Puerto Rican Americans and their community, I would love to have it.
