Not a book club, but an extended “to-be-read” list and reading diary. Se lee en español and also inglés.
All words and photos by Arvelisse Bonilla Ramos.
Not a book club, but an extended “to-be-read” list and reading diary. Se lee en español and also inglés.
All words and photos by Arvelisse Bonilla Ramos.
I remember being a new-New Yorker, broke, exhausted, but happy from having too much fun. Being hungry—both metaphorically and physically. After 11 years in the city, reading this novel by Marlowe Granados made me remember a variety of adventures and tribulations from those first months. From asking friends for money on a Friday night because I couldn’t cash my check from my new job as a hostess at a sports club in Midtown to getting my first bartending gig at a restaurant in Chelsea and not knowing how to make a latte for one of the actors of the movie Trainspotting. That and more happened in the first six months.
Following Isa and Gala, the main characters in Granados' novel, felt exhilarating. I also felt jealousy. Jealousy from never knowing what was next but never losing hope, faith, or might. Being young really is beyond life itself. I folded the left corner of page 142, almost halfway through the book, after a line caught my attention. Coming from Isa: “We found a park called Louis Valentino, Jr., which to me sounded romantic.” This was the same Red Hook pier I got married in 2021 in a cold, so I agree with the protagonist, it is.