Reviews tagging 'Infertility'

Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez

27 reviews

lizziaha's review against another edition

• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

Lately, I feel like I’ve been reading a lot of books about secrets. This one does that in a particularly gut-wrenching way. The way that Gonzalez let’s the reader sit with information, then draw their own conclusions about the characters motivations invited a more interactive experience for me. Gosh I really do love flawed characters. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Abandonment, Emotional abuse, and Grief

Moderate: Racism, Terminal illness, Xenophobia, Addiction, Genocide, Rape, Alcohol, Chronic illness, Colonisation, Death of parent, Alcoholism, Drug abuse, and Homophobia

Minor: Abortion, Bullying, Deportation, and Infertility

zombiezami's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring medium-paced

4.75

My only issue was I didn’t like how anarchism was portrayed. I thought it was fantastic overall, though

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Emotional abuse, Rape, Sexual violence, Alcoholism, Child abuse, War, Classism, Drug abuse, Alcohol, Abandonment, Addiction, and Colonisation

Moderate: Chronic illness, Death of parent, Mental illness, Death, Cursing, Grief, Panic attacks/disorders, Sexual harassment, Racism, and Sexual content

Minor: Slavery, Violence, Abortion, Homophobia, Genocide, Animal death, Infertility, Pandemic/Epidemic, Police brutality, Racial slurs, and War

heather_palmer's review against another edition

1.0

I wanted to love Olga Dies Dreaming, but was sadly disappointed. 

This was a very ambitious book that proposed to tackle a lot of important themes and issues, but it fell short in its execution. There was too much going on with no real time spent fleshing out these different elements. Due to this, the book felt crowded. The readers were not given enough time and space within the novel to successfully cover everything the author wanted to explore in her narrative or to really connect with it. Leaving me let down by the end. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual assault, Rape, and Abandonment

Moderate: Grief, Misogyny, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Addiction, Death, Death of parent, and Suicide

Minor: Abortion and Infertility

stephmcoakley's review against another edition

challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Cultural appropriation, Death, Domestic abuse, Drug abuse, Hate crime, Drug use, Physical abuse, Emotional abuse, Grief, Alcohol, Alcoholism, Homophobia, Addiction, Abandonment, Colonisation, Gun violence, Classism, Death of parent, Infertility, and Mental illness

kelly_e's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Title: Olga Dies Dreaming
Author: Xóchitl González
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Rating: 4.00
Pub Date: January 4, 2022

T H R E E • W O R D S

Layered • Messy • Dynamic

📖 S Y N O P S I S

Brooklyn, 2017

Olga is a successful wedding planner for Manhattan's elite, despite employing some questionable business practices. Her brother, Prieto, is a Congressman representing their gentrifying Latinx neighborhood, and with many secrets of his own.

Despite alluring public lives, the effects of their mother's sudden departure to advance a militant political cause twenty-seven years earlier continues to impact their lives in so many ways. In the wake of Hurricane Maria, the most devastating hurricane in Puerto Rico's history, they will come to understand their Puerto Rican heritage and challenge everything they know and feel when their mother comes barreling back into their lives.

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.

💭 T H O U G H T S

Olga Dies Dreaming fell into my hands while I was attempting to complete an A-Z author challenge this year. I must say I was pleasantly surprised by this complex and layered debut novel, which combines romance, political strife, and family drama.

From the beautifully written first chapter, I instantly knew the propulsive writing style was going to grip me and take me on a messy ride into family dynamics with these flawed and fully developed characters. Not only was I transported into the novel, but I came away having learned about Puerto Rican history. There is no denying that the writing is the heart of this book weaving together a complex multigeneration history of both family and country. It demonstrates how childhood trauma continues to wreck havoc on personal development when our emotions aren't processed.

And while I enjoyed my time with this book, the ending was a little too tidy, especially considering how messy the plot was. It was an ending that felt unrealistic and a little rushed, which definitely took away from the whole experience.

Olga Dies Dreaming unpacks a lot, but overall I was pleasantly surprised by this beautiful debut novel. If you're looking for a lighthearted millennial story, this isn't the book for you. As a reader you must be ready to get messy with Olga and her brother. I cannot wait to see what Xóchitl González has on the horizon.

📚 R E C O M M E N D • T O
• fans of the family saga
• readers look for a LGBTQIA+ Story
• bookclubs

🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S

"You must remember, mijo, even people who were once your sails can become your anchors."

"It’s dangerous at your young age to be surrounded by people who don’t value who you are. Who don’t understand you. A child can become lost."

"Women are born with barometers in our belly that make us more sensitive to the climate around us and because we're so often on the lowers rung of any ladder, we're naturally inclined to look out for the least among us." 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide, Homophobia, Outing, Abandonment, Sexual violence, Emotional abuse, Sexual content, Toxic relationship, Violence, Death, and Death of parent

Moderate: Classism, Sexual assault, Cursing, Drug use, Alcohol, Rape, Grief, Racism, Xenophobia, Drug abuse, and Addiction

Minor: Abortion, Terminal illness, Gaslighting, Misogyny, Infertility, and Colonisation

lolamosk's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Chronic illness, Colonisation, Death, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Alcoholism, Emotional abuse, Racism, and Drug abuse

Moderate: Sexual assault, Suicide, and Rape

Minor: Abortion, Homophobia, and Infertility

lizsurber's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny hopeful reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Misogyny, Murder, Racism, Rape, Sexual content, Abandonment, Addiction, Alcohol, Blood, Body horror, Chronic illness, Colonisation, Infertility, Cursing, Grief, Homophobia, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Emotional abuse, Gaslighting, Schizophrenia/Psychosis , Sexual assault, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Abortion

daniellekat's review against another edition

emotional reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

I’m having a very hard time rating this book. 
Overall the writing was excellent, especially at the beginning. I loved the first half of this book. The organization of the book was engaging with the multiple POVs and the letters interspersed. I was invested in the characters and loved all their interactions especially as the book grappled with the theme of identity. 
But as the book went on,

the turning point was after Mabel’s wedding

I started to feel like the author was taking the easy way out. A lot of the conclusions just felt simple and almost unnecessary based on the book up to that point.

I really disliked Preito’s coming out story. It felt like his positive HIV status served only as a purpose for him to come out. Same with the SA, it was an easy way to write Olga’s “breakdown” and that part of the narrative could have been driven in another way.

 
Finally, two things that are personal pet peeves that this book hit were books that have chapter titles but no table of contents and books with pointless epilogues. Ugh. 

I will add that the audiobook narration was 10/10. The multiple narrators and the way they spoke carried so much of the attitude of each of the characters. Would highly recommend that format for anyone looking to read this! 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Colonisation, Homophobia, Sexual assault, and Toxic relationship

Moderate: Sexual content, Death of parent, and Outing

Minor: Addiction, Abortion, Drug abuse, Chronic illness, and Infertility

HIV/AIDS

mschmidt's review against another edition

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abandonment, Addiction, Death of parent, Classism, Colonisation, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Sexual assault and Racism

Minor: Abortion, Drug use, Sexual content, Xenophobia, Grief, Infertility, Outing, Suicidal thoughts, and Toxic relationship

formerbookclubpresident's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

This book...*sigh* THIS BOOK. 

This book is great. I really enjoyed it, and really appreciated how the author captured the Nuyorican experience, and at parts even made me cry thinking about my own relationship to Puerto Rico as a mainlander. The struggle of not being enough for either country and culture but still carrying them both proudly could not be better described if she tried. The picture of gentrification that she paints is so real and vivid, and given the author's background you can tell this isn't fiction, she's writing from her own experience. 

While I really enjoyed the book, there are a few flaws that I find really hard to get over. Like some other reviewers have mentioned, Prieto 

contracting HIV

just felt cruel and unnecessary and didn't drive his character forward, and felt like a 

push to get him to come out when that could have been achieved a million different ways

. 

The chapter with

Dick SA'ing Olga also

  felt very unnecessary. There were a million ways Olga could've "failed" her mission with Dick and this was not needed. At. All. Also just 

casually mentioning how many times she's been SA'd in the past???

Triggering. 

Finally, Blanca. As a Puerto Rican person myself, the topic of Puerto Rican liberation (like all political topics) requires nuance. It is something that needs to be presented very carefully in order to make the case for liberation (which I felt like the author was for?? and then switched up at the end of the book???) Blanca's portrayal as a villain, who cares about nothing but Puerto Rican liberation hurts the cause for mainlanders/outsiders trying to understand it. It is now painted as some rebel group 

(and the bombing??? bffr)

. I wish that they had made Blanca questionable, and not outright a villain. It would've humanized her in a way that would make readers sympathize with her and not root against her. 

Lastly (and this is my own personal gripe) I wish the author had included a reading list at the end of the book. The novel touches upon so much Puerto Rican history that I would have loved to continue learning about, but because I got it from the library, I don't have the book to go back and look for references to find supplemental materials on. 

Overall, I really liked this book and can't wait to read what the other does next. Pa'lante!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Racism, Sexual assault, Child death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Rape, Addiction, Abandonment, Classism, and Colonisation

Minor: Infertility