The heart wants what the heart wants, and our hearts want books.

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It may have been hotter than a boiling caldron in Tennessee but this week also marks the official start of fall and we are HERE. FOR. IT … and all the witchyness we can get!  I have my special glass selected for Virtual Book Club on Friday, October 21, 2022 at 7:30pm Central where those who sign up here will discuss Alice Hoffman’s The Rules of Magic and we hope to see you there.  Just a hint on this one, if you haven’t read Practical Magic and can’t fit it in before book club but want to, watch the movie, but do come back to the book later, because it’s a fun hang and a bit different from the book, as per usual.

I feel like I need to start with a note that as I was reading through today’s title, the news was full of the story of two planes full of people who are migrant workers and were sent to Martha’s Vineyard from Florida.  The timing felt very interesting.  I feel like I also need to state that Ashley and I did not read this book concurrently, but back to back instead, because there was only one copy we had access to via our libraries.  With those prefaces, darling readers, I want to share with you about The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio.  This title got on my TBR because of the word should.  Actually, I don’t know how it got there, but that’s why it stayed.  As someone who works in the nonprofit sector, I have a passion for helping people who are under resourced, or have a lower status, as was suggested to me today via TED, and while we can definitely have a conversation about the minutiae of the modern caste system in the US (or you can check our review of Isabel Wilkerson’s book outlining it), I think we can all agree most people who immigrate to the US and overstay their visas are among the most under resourced, lower status people in our country.  Many are escaping horrid living conditions and have done so at great personal risk during their journey to our country, merely desiring the “American Dream” so very many of our ancestors came here in search of.  The irony does not escape me.  

The Undocumented Americans is the stories of those people, undocumented immigrants looking for a better life, and it’s told via essays, definitely with some snark, and possibly some embellishments.  Cornejo Villavicencio has a journalistic style that is irreverent and the reading experience was so stellar that I was delighted to read that this title is a National Book Award finalist and will be looking for some of her short form pieces and any other books she chooses to share with us.  

I feel like some readers will shy away from The Undocumented Americans because they think they book will be heavy and it is, but it’s also funny, and enlightening, and even uplifting because of the people telling their stories and how Cornejo Villavicencio capture them and adds her own flare.  It’s important because this book is about our neighbors, both locally and globally.  Sometimes it is our neighbors we can’t communicate with, or don’t see because of our own blinders and privilege, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there because they are, and their stories matter.  If we don’t have proximity in our daily lives with people who don’t look like us or have backgrounds and lived experiences like us, a great step is to read about people who are different from us, and this title is a great choice as part of the journey towards actual proximity with the people who live in your city or town.  

Because of the amazing writing and storytelling, as well as the powerful tales of adversity and persistence, as well as passion and real life struggle, I’m giving The Undocumented Americans an enthusiastic five star review.  While I’m not likely to reread this fantastic, short book, it’s stayed with me and I think it will continue to do so.  If I’m right, it’s got favorite of the year potential.

What’s a powerful book that was also an amazing reading experience you’ve really valued and enjoyed?~ Nikki

Karla Cornejo Villavicencio is the undocumented immigrant daughter of undocumented, native Ecuadorian parents, all three of whom self-identify as New Yorkers. Cornejo Villavicencio is not a DREAMer and admits that “they are commendable young people…but they occupy outsize attention in our politics.” Repeatedly in The Undocumented Americans she thanks personal benefactors, patrons of her writing, who facilitated her ability to receive a private, Catholic primary education, attend Harvard for undergrad, and be working on her PhD at Yale. She has been published in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Republic, Glamour, Elle,  Vogue, and others. She currently lives in New Haven with her partner and dog.

It has been a couple of weeks since I read The Undocumented Americans and yet all the stories have stuck with me, too. From the the tales of undocumented immigrants in Manhattan in the aftermath of the Twin Towers destruction on September 11, 2001 – where they were the ‘second responders,’ the pregnant mother in Flint, Michigan, who didn’t know about the water ban, to the home and herbal medicines that many immigrants depend upon instead of the medical-industrial complex, how the church shelters some immigrants with the concept of sanctuary – where immigration officers will not remove a person for deportation, and to Cornejo Villavicencio’s own parents’ stories and her relationship with them. She admits that after writing the book, she has destroyed the handwritten notes she took during the interviews and refused to use a voice recorder so that anonymity could protect the immigrants from unwanted consequences from ICE. I am especially touched by the story about how some of the immigrants do in fact return to their homelands to live out their old age, but that the ones who choose to stay are aging out of the physically demanding work that they have been doing for years. These people pay taxes but receive no benefits. Many are not only undocumented, but unbanked, and they certainly don’t have investment resources that they can fall back upon to support their retirement. 

These stories, these heart- and gut-wrenching stories…truly there are no words to how impactful they could, nay SHOULD be in the public consciousness. How can we as humans treat other humans in such inhumane ways? Even Cornejo Villavincencio admits that she has “drunk the social-mobility Kool-Aid” and thinks that if anyone wants to get educated and do better for themselves that they can, but she also admits in the same paragraph that she specifically had a lot of monetary help funding her entire American education. She worries about her parents and providing for them in their old-age. 

After a lot of contemplation about my star-rating, I’m also giving The Undocumented Americans a five-star review. As Nikki mentioned, Cornejo Villavicencio’s style is inherently conversational and yet it’s the conversations with good, trusted friends that hit us in the feels more often than surface level, fact based newspaper reads. I wish that it were a National Book Award WINNER and had all the fanfare as such, but Finalist is no small feat. I’d love to see this title as required reading in our high schools government and citizenship classes. It makes me want so much more for my country, and that’s what the most thought-provoking titles can do no matter the subject matter.

~Ashley

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The following post includes affiliate links. More details here.  As you’re doing your Amazon shopping, we’d be ever so grateful if you’d use our affiliate link to do so as it helps pay the bills around here!

Today, September 15th, is the official start to Hispanic Heritage Month which goes until October 15th. But, you should know by now, however, that October Is For Witches at Heart.Wants.Books. Therefore, we’re hosting Virtual Book Club next month with an historical (kinda) witchy read. Well, at least the personal history of the fictional Aunts in Alice Hoffman’s Practical Magic. Please join us in reading The Rules of Magic and sign up here to join us on Friday, October 21, 2022 at 7:30pm Central Time. Costumery and festive snacks and beverages encouraged!

Dear readers, it is not often that I consume a book because real life gets in the way.  Work, kids, chores, and just distraction are usually limiting my ability to binge anything.  However, none of this interfered with me reading most of Our Last Days in Barcelona by Chanel Cleeton in less than 30 hours, including a work day, solo parenting, and sleeping.  If you’re following along on Goodreads, you may wonder why it says I took six days for this short (around 300 pages), engaging title.  What had happened was Ashley and I realized we wanted to hit pause on our blog title for Kindle Unlimited, so we did.  We were balancing reading titles to review here and a free for all on Kindle Unlimited, and the day we started this title, we realized we both had some Kindle Unlimited titles that we had started and wanted to finish before they disappeared in our pause.  So, a couple of chapters into Our Last Days in Barcelona, I hit pause, finished my titles I’d borrowed from Kindle Unlimited, and when I picked it back up, well, I was hooked, and I stayed up well past bedtime to finish with no regrets.  

Way back two years ago, we read and reviewed Chanel Cleeton’s The Last Train to Key West and knew it wouldn’t be our last Cleeton title, and my only regret is that we waited so long.  It’s her third title, but a great entry point into her work.  If you have feelings about where to start in her work, please see the author’s website for the publication order and the years covered by each title.  Readers do note, all of Cleeton’s Cuban titles are connected.  I was delighted to see a family tree at the end of Our Last Days in Barcelona, which helped me to connect the rest of the dots.  I do want to note, this title is one of two (so far) that covers multiple timelines.  I have struggled with this in other titles, but not this one!  Both stories are linear and the connection of why they’re told together like this quickly becomes clear to the readers.  They were easy to keep separate and really enhanced the experience for me.

In Our Last Days in Barcelona, we have the story of Alicia Perez in 1936 and her daughter Isabel in 1964, both centered in Barcelona, although the Perez family is Cuban.  Isabel comes to Barcelona looking for her sister who’s stopped replying to letters and calls and finds much more than she’s expecting, including a family secret she longs to reveal.  This title might be best categorized as a historical family saga, but there’s also a bit of coming of age for our leads, as well as some romance, revolution, and even mystery too.  Perhaps the biggest theme for me was expectations of women, from society, culture, family, and self.  It’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately with all of the different facets of life competing for my energy and attention and I was really struck by how it was woven through both story lines and how each of the characters faced her own struggles, which were definitely informed by all of the shoulding onto them.  Reading the story of mother and daughter at a similar impasse of life had me all up in my feelings because it was so plain how mom’s experiences shaped the way she raised her family, and impacted her daughters.  The best part though, it didn’t feel like I sat reading for nearly four hours (I did move from place to place, but it was mostly reading and it was GLORIOUS) because the writing was gorgeous, the pacing was fantastic, and the plot was so engaging.  I’m giving Our Last Days in Barcelona 4.5 stars and noting the intention of consuming Cleeton’s back list as soon as the holds situation allows (which doesn’t look like soon, unfortunately).  I’m going to round down not up on Goodreads because I don’t see myself rereading this title, even though I did thoroughly enjoy it and highly recommend it if it sounds like something you’d enjoy!

What’s the last book that you stayed up well past bedtime to finish?

~Nikki  

Chanel Cleeton is without a doubt magical. I don’t know how any woman could keep up with being an attorney with a bachelors in International Relations and a master’s degree in Global Politics while also writing at least one book a year since 2014! Pure Sorcery I tell you! But, I am entranced by her magic and I will continue reading her backlist as quickly as possible. Hopefully before The Cuban Heiress is due out in May of 2023! And, yes I DID absolutely recommend it to the library already!

Nikki already mentioned many of the feelings that I had wanted to discuss after reading Our Last Days in Barcelona, namely the expectations of women from every – stinking – where you can imagine. I especially wanted to discuss inherited expectations from family which most women then place upon themselves internally. Why is it that we find ourselves reading about women doing the hard inner work of knowing themselves? I know the external stimulating factors of internal questioning is usually different for every character (read: human), but that internal struggle is to me what allows us to empathize with any character, to find pieces of ourselves contained on the page.

I don’t have to look hard for this connection between Isabel in 1964 and her mother Alicia in 1937, because the climax of the book centers around Guernica, which hits right at the 80% sweet spot. I’m not going to give you spoilers about what actually happens in the book, but if you know anything about the Pablo Picasso mural of the same name, he painted it for the 1937 Paris International Exposition. Picasso was commissioned to paint a mural for the Exposition by the Spanish Republican government. Once he truly knew the horrors Nazi aerial bombs did to the town and people of Guernica on April 26, 1937 at the request of Francisco Franco’s Spanish Nationalist party, Picasso changed his previous plan for the mural to oppose the Nationalist Party’s aims in Spain and the horrors of war in general. Guernica is considered Picasso’s most well-known work and perhaps the most powerful anti-war painting in history. The monochromatic, gray, black, and white 11 foot tall 25 foot long mural is currently hanging in the Museo Reina Sofia in Madrid, but in 1964 it was housed at the MoMa in New York. As part of his estate, Picasso’s will dictated that Guernica must be returned to Spanish soil once the Spanish people were in control of their own destiny and a republican government was in control once again. [In 1978, Spain ratified a new constitution instituting a democratic constitutional monarchy, and after much negotiation, Guernica was returned to Spain in 1981.] Bringing it back to Our Last Days in Barcelona in the prologue, when we meet Isabel on the eve of her wedding in Palm Beach, she is painting a picture of home, of Cuba. 

I’m so glad that I consumed this double 4.5 star read by Chanel Cleeton. Our Last Days in Barcelona transports the reader into the minds and hearts of the Perez women, showing us how newsworthy events on a global scale can affect families for generations afterward – specifically with inherited, familial expectations. I am also unlikely to re-read this title, as I truly need to get going on Cleeton’s backlist, but I would consider it for a bookish discussion, especially if someone hosts a party with the publisher provided Book Club Kit! [Nikki here: if you’re interested, let us know in the comments or DMs. I’m confident we could be convinced to reread, for the sake of Virtual Book Club!]

~Ashley

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