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15 Books By Latinx Authors That You Should Be Reading

Estimated reading time ~ 4 min
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Hispanic Heritage month begins September 15th and we want to celebrate by honoring our Latinx community all month. Starting with some of our favorite reads, Jopwell book club is back! Scroll to add some of our suggested reads to your library.

Of Women and Salt by Gabriela Garcia

This sweeping novel follows one mother's struggle to help her daughter who suffers from drug addiction, who in turn is trying to understand their family's history as immigrants from Cuba. It's a story of migration, love across generations and the way we carry our legacies in our bones.

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What's Mine and Yours by Naima Coster

Two North Caroline students, Gee and Noelle, face racial tension from the community and their own families after a governmental plan brings students from primarily Black neighborhoods into a nearby white high school. When they join the school play meant to bridge the divide, it sets off a chain of events that will entangle their families for years to come.

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My Broken Language: A Memoir by Quiara Alegria Hudes

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of In the Heights comes a memoir about growing up in a Philadelphia barrio, her Puerto Rican identity and trying to find the language that fits her voice.

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The Mirror Season by Anna-Marie McLemore

An unforgettable story of trauma and healing, told in achingly beautiful prose with great tenderness and care. When two teens discover that they were both sexually assaulted at the same party, they develop a cautious friendship through her family's possibly magical pastelería, his secret forest of otherworldly trees, and the swallows returning to their hometown.

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Muted by Tami Charles

For seventeen-year-old Denver, music is everything. Writing, performing, and her ultimate goal: escaping her very small, very white hometown.

So Denver is more than ready on the day she and her best friends Dali and Shak sing their way into the orbit of the biggest R&B star in the world, Sean "Mercury" Ellis. Merc gives them everything: parties, perks, wild nights -- plus hours and hours in the recording studio. Even the painful sacrifices and the lies the girls have to tell are all worth it.

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Indivisible by Daniel Aleman

Mateo Garcia and his younger sister, Sophie, have been taught to fear one word for as long as they can remember: deportation. Over the past few years, however, the fear that their undocumented immigrant parents could be sent back to Mexico started to fade. Ma and Pa have been in the United States for so long, they have American-born children, and they're hard workers and good neighbors.

When Mateo returns from school one day to find that his parents have been taken by ICE, he realizes that his family's worst nightmare has become a reality. With his parents' fate and his own future hanging in the balance, Mateo must figure out who he is and what he is capable of, even as he's forced to question what it means to be an American.

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Somewhere Between Bitter and Sweet by Laekan Zea Kemp

Penelope Prado has always dreamed of opening her own pastelería next to her father's restaurant, Nacho's Tacos. But her mom and dad have different plans--leaving Pen to choose between not disappointing her traditional Mexican American parents or following her own path. When she confesses a secret she's been keeping, her world is sent into a tailspin. But then she meets a cute new hire at Nacho's who sees through her hard exterior and asks the questions she's been too afraid to ask herself.

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Fat Chance Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado

Charlotte "Charlie" Vega struggles with her weight and body image, not least because of her mom's pressure to lose weight. But in this lovely and empowering young adult novel, she learns to embrace her body and who she is, just the way she is.

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One of the Good Ones by Maika and Maritza Moulite

Two sisters tackle the question of who's deemed "worthy" of being missed in this incisive take on police brutality and how we frame victims in its aftermath. It's not a light read, but a necessary one.

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I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sanchez

Julia isn't the ideal daughter – that's her sister Olga's job. But when Olga dies in a tragic bus accident, Julia has to bear the brunt of her mother's grief. But was Olga really as perfect as her mom always thought? This coming-of-age story delves into what it's like growing up in a Mexican household in a way that will have you both laughing and wiping away tears.

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The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

No reading list is complete without this classic coming-of-age story about Esperanza Cordero, a young girl growing up in Chicago. Anyone who's ever been a child, regardless of their background, will recognize some of themself in this beautiful, sometimes heart-wrenching book.

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Ordinary Girls: A Memoir by Jaquira Diaz

Take a painful, illuminating journey through a girlhood marked by sexual violence, substance abuse, and mental illness, to a womanhood that claws its way out of despair and into hope. Diaz's story is raw, honest, and paints a beautiful picture not only of her own life but of Puerto Rico and Miami Beach themselves.

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Dominicana by Angie Cruz

When Ana Cancion gets a chance to immigrate to New York City as Juan Ruiz's wife, she jumps at the chance, more for her family than herself. But she feels trapped and alone in NYC; that is, until she befriends Juan's younger brother Cesar. When her husband goes back to the Dominican Republic temporarily, she relishes a taste of freedom. But she's got a hard choice to make before he gets back.

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Sabrina & Corina: Stories by Kali Fajardo-Anstine

The Latinx women with indigenous roots in this breathtaking collection navigate the often-challenging landscape of Colorado the same way they do their lives: with grace, stamina and fortitude. While the stories are specific, the exploration of home, womanhood and belonging mean something to all of us.

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Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun by Jonny Garza Villa

A poignant, funny, openhearted novel about coming out, first love, and being your one and only best and true self.

Julián Luna has a plan for his life: Graduate. Get into UCLA. And have the chance to move away from Corpus Christi, Texas, and the suffocating expectations of others that have forced Jules into an inauthentic life.

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