Dreaming of You
A Novel in Verse
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
"A feverish story of young adulthood, exploring how fandom and obsession shape how we relate to the world . . . Dreaming of You navigates the complexities of Latinx identity, self-loathing, love, and the loneliness of drifting into adulthood." —Miguel Salazar, Vulture
"At the center of this exploration of insecurities, joys, and identity stands Melissa Lozada-Oliva—an unapologetic poet who isn’t afraid of the rawness of the mind and is resilient in her writing— so much so that it feels like we’re talking to our best friend." —Bianca Pérez, Porter House Review
A macabre novel in verse of loss, longing, and identity crises following a poet who resurrects pop star Selena from the dead.
Melissa Lozada-Oliva's Dreaming of You is an absurd yet heartfelt examination of celebrity worship.
A young Latinx poet grappling with loneliness and heartache decides one day to bring Tejano pop star Selena Quintanilla back to life. The séance kicks off an uncanny trip narrated by a Greek chorus of gossiping spirits as she journeys through a dead celebrity prom, encounters her shadow self, and performs karaoke in hell.
In visceral poems embodying millennial angst, paragraph-long conversations overheard at her local coffeeshop, and unhinged Twitter rants, Lozada-Oliva reveals an eerie, sometimes gruesome, yet moving love story.
Playfully morbid and profoundly candid, an interrogation of Latinidad, womanhood, obsession, and disillusionment, Dreaming of You grapples with the cost of being seen for your truest self.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
This is one of the most exciting, exhilarating debut novels of 2021. Although some cranky purists might argue that this collection of poems—many of them just a few lines long—isn’t a novel in the traditional sense, Dreaming of You has a cast of characters and a plot. And what a plot! Obsessed since childhood with Tejano pop star Selena Quintanilla-Pérez, who was tragically murdered in 1995, a Brooklyn poet named Melissa Lozada-Oliva does the obvious thing…and brings her back from the dead. “I had this image of Selena finding herself alive again and going to a Halloween party where everyone else was dressed up as her,” says the real-world Melissa Lozada-Oliva about her first novel. We don’t want to say much more so as not to spoil the beauty, pain, dread, and strangeness of this book, which is often laugh-out-loud hilarious and occasionally viscerally horrifying. We’ve never read anything like Dreaming of You. It marks the arrival of a major new talent, and we can’t wait to see what Lozada-Oliva does next.
