Love War Stories
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
"Arrests the heart with its stunning exploration of women who are put through a kind of hell in their determination to find true love . . . extraordinary." —Angie Cruz, author of Dominicana
Finalist for the 2019 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
Finalist for the 2018 Foreword Reviews INDIES Award
Best Book/Most Anticipated Book/Recommended Read of 2018: Cosmopolitan.com, The Root, Electric Literature, Bustle, Book Riot, PEN America, PopSugar, The Rumpus, B*tch, Remezcla, Mitú, and other publications.
Puerto Rican girls are brought up to want one thing: true love. Yet they are raised by women whose lives are marked by broken promises, grief, and betrayal. While some believe that they'll be the ones to finally make it work, others swear not to repeat cycles of violence. This collection documents how these "love wars" break out across generations as individuals find themselves caught in the crosshairs of romance, expectations, and community.
"A tough smart dazzling debut by a tough smart dazzling writer. Ivelisse Rodriguez is a revelation." —Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of This Is How You Lose Her
"[An] exceptional collection of short stories . . . Filled with memorable characters and sharp writing, this book will leave you breathless." —Bustle
"Rodriguez conceives exquisite misery and makes alchemy of hopelessness in her debut short story collection." —Electric Literature
"[A] perceptive exploration of love, heartbreak, and womanhood." —The Seattle Review of Books
"This reviewer kept returning to [these stories] for their freshness, urgency, and sheer heart." —Library Journal
"Throughout the collection, Rodriguez's prose pulls you in, and her characters will stay with you even when the stories are only a few pages long." —BUST
"Both heartbreaking and insightful." —Publishers Weekly
"Stunning." —MyDomaine
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Rodriguez's uneven debut introduces readers to a cast of characters who range from unhinged aunts to scholarship students at a private New York City high school to legendary Puerto Rican poet and activist Julia de Burgos. Rodriguez's characters struggle with, covet, and seek to subvert their familial and cultural legacies of suffering from love. In the collection's most structurally interesting story, "Holyoke, Mass.: An Ethnography," an anonymous narrator responds to the publication of an ethnographic account of her hometown by providing her own, truer version: interweaving the story of Veronica, a girl featured in the ethnography, with the cultural and industrial history of Holyoke. However, though ambitious, the conceit isn't carried all the way through as a result, the two strands don't come together convincingly. The two standout stories are "Summer of Nene," which fully inhabits the voice of a young Puerto Rican boy dealing with his burgeoning sexuality, including an affair with his chronically ill male friend, as well as interest from the hottest girl in his class; and "The Belindas," in which Belinda comes face-to-face again with the charming, handsome, and volatile ex-boyfriend with whom she shares a violent past that has completely altered her life and yet left his untouched. Other stories feel underdeveloped, and though the collection is only somewhat successful as a whole, Rodriguez's best stories are both heartbreaking and insightful.
