by Achy Obejas
First published 1996
Julieta is twenty-four and caught between worlds. She lives in America now, but Cuba haunts her thoughts with fragments of childhood and loss. Her family carries their own damage from the crossing. They argue, they disappoint, they demand things she cannot give. Julieta tries to build something solid in this new place while her relatives pull her back into old patterns of hurt. She wants to love women openly, to speak her truth, to find peace with the memories that flood her mind without warning. But the past keeps surfacing. Her family's dysfunction spreads through every conversation. The weight of what they left behind presses against what they hope to become. Julieta must decide how much of her old self to keep and how much to release as she searches for belonging in a country that promised freedom but delivered complexity.
Genres: literary-fiction, coming-of-age, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: intimate, lyrical, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, found-family
Setting: America, Cuba
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
249 pages · Hardcover · Cleis Pr