Juli Delgado Lopera

I think this would be a great book to read if you knew both English and Spanish, and were interested in Queer youth issues. Lopera writes in "Spanglish" with a heavy sprinkling of Colombian slang. My Spanish is very elementary, and I started out with Google translate by my side. That was too cumbersome, and also with the slang did not always work. So I ended up just reading, and I did miss some Spanish, but could follow the book in general. It was a bit frustrating for me, but worthwhile in the end.

Francisca is a teenage, Colombian immigrant; figuring out her own sexuality, her family, and her relationship to the fundamentalist Christianity and to the charismatic Carmen, the preacher's daughter. Her voice is great, young and brash. The second half of the book covers the stories of relatives in Colombia, and was not as interesting and somewhat hard to follow.

Here is a quote to give an idea of the voice:

“Outside, the sky in all its fury released buckets of water that swayed with the palm trees. El cielo gris, oscuro. Talk about goth. Right at noon the sky transformed itself from orange light to chunky black clouds that gave zero fucks about your beach plans or the three hours you spent ironing that hair, splaying all its sadness right in front of you.”… (mais)

this was really hard for me. hard, like, it's a sad book, but hard to read as well. it's written in spanglish, so there is a lot of spanish throughout. some sprinkled, some in complete sentences. and some of it is slang. so it was often a little hard to follow, although she sometimes made it clear what she was saying without translating it. i prefer to be sure what the author is saying, but i am trying to appreciate that part of the experience of this book for most people is a purposeful block in that understanding. (as the characters are immigrants who don't speak english, so it's quite a bit what it must be like to have come from colombia and not fully understand what's going on around you.) i also don't think that the flashback pieces (the grandmother and mother's stories) gave enough context to warrant being included.

this was well written - some of it beautifully so (oh that last sentence!) - but i never got comfortable with it. the voice was strong but never felt right to me, which is my main problem with the book. it's hard to like a book when the voice doesn't feel right.

this was a tough story and i expected to like it based on the themes (isolation, loneliness, blossoming queerness, religious questioning), but i really didn't. i am definitely interested in what she writes next, though, because homegirl can write (as she might say). bumping it up to 2 stars for that reason.… (mais)

Fiebre Tropical offers one of the most original voices I've encountered in years. It's written in Spanglish and inflected with Colombian regional accents, and one cannot help but hear the narrator's voice in one ear while reading. The Spanish/English distribution is about 20/80, so you don't have to know Spanish to read it, but even a slight knowledge of the language makes reading this book all the more enjoyable. While the narrator's voice comes across as casual and unpremeditated, the craft behind it is impressive—in Fiebre Tropical, every single word feels like exactly the right choice.

Fiebre Tropical is sort of a Miami-based Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit. Francisca, the fifteen-year-old narrator, has recently arrived in Miami with her mother and sister. The three are living with Francisca's grandmother. Francisca's mother was a high-level finance executive in Colombia; in Miami, she struggles to pay for basics while piecing together an assortment of low-paying part-time jobs.

The family's life quickly becomes structured around a largely Colombian immigrant fundamentalist church. The novel opens with preparations for a baptism of Francisca's brother—who died before Francisca was born—intended to free him from purgatory. Church services are long and rather raucous with praise, testimonies, and regular fainting among those feeling the spirit. Myriam, in her black jeans and Ramones t-shirt, is completely out of place here, but her interest in the daughter of the pastor/pastora couple who run the church leads her to do her best to embrace the community's values.

Over the course of the novel, Francisca describes herself making her way to acknowledging her lesbian identity, though she never actually uses the word "lesbian." She's telling this story to an unnamed "mi reina" (an affectionate term meaning "my queen"), so the implication is that she's well past the uncertainties of the years she's narrating, comfortable with her lesbian identity and in a solid relationship, remembering her younger self with affection and humor.

Juliana Delgado Lopera's novel will have you laughing, aching, and at times sputtering with surprise. It offers a great read for any lover of contemporary fiction. Five stars!

I received a free electronic review copy of this book from the Feminist Press via NetGalley. The opinions are my own.… (mais)