First published 2018
Maria watches her mother fold another letter from a man who promised to return. Down the hall, her grandmother burns photographs of her second husband. Three generations of Puerto Rican women live under one roof, each carrying scars from love gone wrong. Maria's mother teaches her to cook and clean for a future husband while warning her that men always leave. Her grandmother speaks of romance like warfare, using terms of strategy and surrender. When Maria meets Carlos at seventeen, she faces an impossible choice. She can follow the family tradition of hoping this time will be different, or she can reject love entirely to avoid repeating the cycle. Her female relatives watch and wait, each projecting their own broken dreams onto her decision. The stories span multiple generations, showing how patterns of disappointment and hope pass from mother to daughter. Each woman believes she can break the cycle, yet finds herself trapped between cultural expectations and personal desires. Rodriguez reveals how love becomes a battlefield where victory and defeat blur together.
Genres: romance, literary-fiction, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: enemies-to-lovers, found-family
Setting: Puerto Rico
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
176 pages · Paperback · The Feminist Press at CUNY
Content warnings: emotional-abuse