Olga Dies Dreaming

Locations
Call Number: Fiction / Gonzalez, Xochitl, Adult Book / Fiction / General / Gonzalez, Xochitl
On Shelf At: Downtown Library, Malletts Creek Branch, Pittsfield Branch, Traverwood Branch, Westgate Branch

"A blazing talent debuts with the tale of a status-driven wedding planner grappling with her social ambitions, absent mother, and Puerto Rican roots, all in the wake of Hurricane María. It's 2017, and Olga and her brother, Pedro "Prieto" Acevedo, are bold-faced names in their hometown of New York. Prieto is a popular congressman representing their gentrifying Latinx neighborhood in Brooklyn while Olga is the tony wedding planner for Manhattan's powerbrokers. Despite their alluring public lives, behind closed doors things are far less rosy. Sure, Olga can orchestrate the love stories of the 1%, but she can't seem to find her own...until she meets Matteo, who forces her to confront the effects of long-held family secrets... Twenty-seven years ago, their mother, Blanca, a Young Lord-turned-radical, abandoned her children to advance a militant political cause, leaving them to be raised by their grandmother. Now, with the winds of hurricane season, Blanca has come barreling back into their lives. Set against the backdrop of New York City in the months surrounding the most devastating hurricane in Puerto Rico's history, Xochitl Gonzalez's Olga Dies Dreaming is a story that examines political corruption, familial strife and the very notion of the American dream-all while asking what it really means to weather a storm"-- Provided by publisher.

REVIEWS & SUMMARIES

COMMUNITY REVIEWS

Awful submitted by courtneyhooper on August 12, 2022, 11:05pm I cannot understand the love for this book. The plot is preposterous, and there are so many details the author gets wrong about New York, I wanted to scream.

Beautifully written, maybe just a bit too long submitted by clk.9123 on August 21, 2022, 2:56pm This is a tough book to rate, because it was beautifully written and I loved the authors style and way with words. I also loved the plot, the personal and relationship developments that occurred along with the central themes of gentrification, colonialism, Puerto Rican liberation, and white wealthy Americans and politics. The only reason I didn’t rate 5 stars is because I think it was a little too long, it didn’t feel like much happens in the first 200 pages. The last 170-something pages were quite engaging but I think a bit of editing could have occurred in the beginning. I’m afraid that people will pick this up and feel lost and bored with it in the beginning.