LibGuides: Lake Bluff Library Adult Reading Lists: Latinx Stories

Hispanic Heritage Month

Fiction
Nonfiction

A Long Petal Of the Sea by Isabel Allende
Call Number: Fic Allende, Isabel
Sponsored by the poet Pablo Neruda to flee the violence of the Spanish Civil War, a pregnant widow and an army doctor unite in an arranged marriage, only to be swept up by the early days of World War II. (Description from NoveList.)
Afterlife by Julia Alvarez
Call Number: Fic Alvarez, Julia
"A literature professor tries to rediscover who she is after the sudden death of her husband, even as a series of family and political jolts force her to ask what we owe those in crisis in our families, biological or otherwise"-- Provided by publisher.
Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica
Call Number: Fic Bazterrica, Agustina
Working at the local processing plant, Marcos is in the business of slaughtering humans-- though no one calls them that anymore. First an infectious virus made all animal meat poisonous to humans. Then governments initiated the "Transition." Now, eating "special meat" is legal. Then one day he is given a live specimen of the finest quality.
(Description from catalog)
The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina by Zoraida Córdova
Call Number: Fic Cordova, Zoraida
A gorgeously written novel about a family searching for the truth hidden in their past and the power they've inherited.
(Description from catalog)
What's Mine and Yours by Naima Coster
Call Number: Fic Coster, Naima
When a county initiative in the Piedmont of North Carolina forces the students at a mostly black public school on the east side to move across town to a nearly all-white high school on the west, the community rises in outrage. For two students, quiet and aloof Gee and headstrong Noelle, these divisions will extend far beyond their schooling. As their paths collide and overlap over the course of thirty years, their two seemingly disconnected families begin to form deeply knotted, messy ties that shape the trajectory of their lives.
(Description from catalog)
You Had Me at Hola by Alexis Daria
Call Number: Fic Daria, Alexis
After a messy public breakup leaves her face splashed across the tabloids, soap opera darling Jasmine Lin Rodriguez returns to New York City to film the starring role in a bilingual romantic comedy for the number one streaming service in the country. A casting shake-up pairs her with telenovela hunk Ashton Suárez, who is worried about his career after his last telenovela character was killed off.
(Description from catalog)
Sabrina and Corina: Stories by Kali Fajardo-Anstine
Call Number: Fic Fajardo-Anstine, Kali
Kali Fajardo-Anstine's magnetic story collection breathes life into her Latina characters of indigenous ancestry and the land they inhabit in the American West. Against the remarkable backdrop of Denver, Colorado--a place that is as fierce as it is exquisite--these women navigate the land the way they navigate their lives: with caution, grace, and quiet force. (Description from catalog)
Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia
Call Number: Fic Garcia, Gabriela
In present-day Miami, Jeanette is battling addiction. Daughter of Carmen, a Cuban immigrant, she is determined to learn more about her family history from her reticent mother and makes the snap decision to take in the daughter of a neighbor detained by ICE. Carmen, still wrestling with the trauma of displacement, must process her difficult relationship with her own mother while trying to raise a wayward Jeanette.
(Description from catalog)
Hades, Argentina by Daniel Loedel
Call Number: Fic Loedel, Daniel
In 1976, Tomaas Oriilla is a medical student in Buenos Aires, where he's moved in hopes of reuniting with Isabel, a childhood crush. But the reckless passion that has always drawn him is leading Isabel ever deeper into the ranks of young insurgents fighting an increasingly oppressive regime.
(Description from catalog)
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Call Number: Fic Moren-Garcia, Silvia
A reimagining of the classic gothic suspense novel follows the experiences of a courageous socialite in 1950s Mexico who is drawn into the treacherous secrets of an isolated mansion. (Description from NoveList.)
The Worst Best Man by Mia Sosa
Call Number: Fic Sosa, Mia
A wedding planner left at the altar? Yeah, the irony isn't lost on Carolina Santos, either. But despite that embarrassing blip from her past, Lina's offered an opportunity that could change her life. There's just one hitch: she has to collaborate with the best (make that worst) man from her own failed nuptials. (Description from NoveList.)
The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea
Call Number: Fic Urrea, Luis Alberto
70-year-old patriarch Big Angel de la Cruz is dying, and he wants to have one last birthday blowout. Unfortunately, his 100-year-old mother, America, dies the week of his party, so funeral and birthday are celebrated one day apart. The entire contentious, riotous de la Cruz clan descends on San Diego for the events--"High rollers and college students, prison veternaos and welfare mothers, happy kids and sad old-timers and pinches gringos and all available relatives." Not to mention figurative ghosts of the departed and an unexpected guest with a gun.
(Description from catalog)

Once I Was You: A Memoir of Love and Hate in a Torn America by Maria Hinojosa
Call Number: 070.92 Hin
Emmy Award-winning NPR journalist Maria Hinojosa shares her personal story interwoven with American immigration policy's coming-of-age journey at a time when our country's branding went from "The Land of the Free" to "the land of invasion." (Description from catalog.)
Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen by Jose Antonio Vargas
Call Number: 304.873 Var
The journalist and immigration-rights activist presents a memoir relating how he was sent from the Philippines to the U.S. as a child, his discovery of his undocumented status as a teenager, and his decision to reveal his immigration status publicly in 2011. (Description from NoveList)
In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado
Call Number: 306.7663 Mac
An engrossing and wildly innovative account of a relationship gone bad, and a bold dissection of the mechanisms and cultural representations of psychological abuse.
(Description from catalog)
My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor
Call Number: 347.73 Sot
An instant American icon--the first Hispanic on the U.S. Supreme Court--tells the story of her life before becoming a judge in an inspiring, surprisingly personal memoir. (Description from catalog)
The Line Becomes a River by Francisco Cantú
Call Number: 363.285 Can
A former Border Patrol agent's haunting experience of an unnatural divide and the lives caught on either side, struggling to cross or to defend it. (Description from catalog)
In the Country We Love: My Family Divided by Diane Guerrero; Michelle Burford
Call Number: 791.43 Gue
Diane Guerrero, actress from Orange is the New Black and Jane the Virgin, was just fourteen years old when her parents and brother were arrested and deported to Colombia while she was at school. Born in the U.S., Guerrero was able to remain in the country and continue her education, depending on the kindness of family friends who took her in and helped her build a life and a successful acting career for herself, without the support system of her family. In the Country We Love is a moving, heartbreaking story of one woman's extraordinary resilience in the face of the nightmarish struggles of undocumented residents in this country. (Description from catalog)
Spirit Run: a 6,000 Mile Marathon Through North America’s Stolen Land by Noe Alvarez
Call Number: 796.4209 Álv
A debut memoir by the son of working-class Mexican immigrants describes his upbringing in Washington State, membership in the Peace and Dignity Journeys movement and competition in the Native American cultural marathon from Canada to Guatemala.
(Description from NoveList)
Children of the Land by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo
Call Number: 813.6 Her
With beauty, grace, and honesty, Castillo recounts his and his family's encounters with a system that treats them as criminals for seeking safe, ordinary lives. He writes of the Sunday afternoon when he opened the door to an ICE officer who had one hand on his holster, of the hours he spent making a fake social security card so that he could work to support his family, of his fathers deportation and the decade that he spent waiting to return to his wife and children only to be denied reentry. (Description from catalog.)
Ordinary Girls by Jaquira Díaz
Call Number: 818.603 Día
An unflinching account of growing up as a queer biracial girl searching for home as her family splits apart and her mother struggles with mental illness and addiction.
(Description from catalog)