Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez
undefined

Get a free gift with your first book.

Join for just $9.99.

We’ll make this quick.

First, enter your email. Then choose your move.

By pressing "Pick a book now" or "Pick a book later", you agree to Book of the Month’s Terms of use and Privacy policy.

Get a free gift with your first book.

Join for just $9.99.

You did it!

Your account is now up to date.

get the app

Our app is where it’s at.

Unlock our Reading Challenge, earn prizes, and get notified of new books on our app.

Our app is where it’s at.

Unlock our Reading Challenge, earn prizes, and get notified of new books on our app.

Download on the App Store
Get it on Google Play

Already have the app? Explore here.

birthday coupon modal image

A birthday treat.

Celebrate your birthday with a free add-on in your June box. It's our way of saying happy birthday, BFF.

Choose your free hat.

Add one to your first box.

Unreliable Narrator hat
Unreliable Narrator hat
Book Person hat
Book Person hat
Checkout without a hat

Please confirm your age.

Are you 0 years old?

Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez

Contemporary fiction

Olga Dies Dreaming

Debut
Early Release

by Xochitl Gonzalez

Excellent choice

Just enter your email to add this book to your box.

By pressing "Add to box", you agree to Book of the Month’s Terms of use and Privacy policy.

The gates are closed.

You’re on the waitlist. We’ll email you once you can enroll.

Quick take

Two siblings vie for the American dream until Hurricane Maria drags their estranged mother back into their lives.

Good to know

  • Illustrated icon, Family_Drama

    Family drama

  • Illustrated icon, Buzzy

    Buzzy

  • Illustrated icon, Mama_Drama

    Mama drama

  • Illustrated icon, NYC

    NYC

Synopsis

It's 2017, and Olga and her brother, Pedro “Prieto” Acevedo, are boldfaced names in their hometown of New York. Prieto is a popular congressman representing their gentrifying Latinx neighborhood in Brooklyn, while Olga is the tony wedding planner for Manhattan’s power brokers.

Despite their alluring public lives, behind closed doors things are far less rosy. Sure, Olga can orchestrate the love stories of the 1 percent but she can’t seem to find her own. . . until she meets Matteo, who forces her to confront the effects of long-held family secrets.

Olga and Prieto’s mother, Blanca, a Young Lord turned radical, abandoned her children to advance a militant political cause, leaving them to be raised by their grandmother. Now, with the winds of hurricane season, Blanca has come barreling back into their lives.

Set against the backdrop of New York City in the months surrounding the most devastating hurricane in Puerto Rico’s history, Xochitl Gonzalez’s 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.

Content warning

This book contains mentions of suicide and sexual assault.

Read a sample

Get an early look from the first pages of Olga Dies Dreaming.

Olga Dies Dreaming

The Napkins

The telltale sign that you are at the wedding of a rich person is the napkins. At the not-rich person’s wedding, should a waiter spill water or wine or a mixed drink of well liquor onto the napkin-covered lap of a guest, the beverage would bead up and roll off the cheap square of commercially laundered polyblend fabric, down the guest’s legs, eventually pooling on the hideous, overly busy patterned carpet designed and chosen specifically to mask these such stains. At the rich person’s wedding, however, the napkins are made of a European linen fine enough for a Tom Wolfe suit, hand-pressed into smooth order and trimmed with a gracious hemstitch border. Should the waiter spill any of the luxury bottled water, vintage wine, or custom-crafted cocktails designed by a mixologist for the occasion, the napkin would, dutifully, absorb any moisture before the incident could irritate a couture-clad guest. Of course, at the rich person’s wedding the waitstaff don’t spill things; they have been separated and elevated from their more slovenly, less-coordinated brethren in a natural selection process of the service industry that judges on appearance, gait, and inherent knowledge of which side to serve from and which to clear. The rich person’s wedding also never features hideous carpet. Not because the venue or locale might not have had one, but because they had the money to cover it over. And not necessarily just with another nicer, more tasteful carpet, but with hardwood flooring, black and white Havana-inspired tiles, or even actual, natural grass. These, though, were the more obvious markers of wealth at a milestone life celebration for the rich person, and while Olga Isabel Acevedo’s job required her to worry about all of these elements and more, the present moment found her primarily concerned with the napkins. Mainly, how she could steal them when the party was over.

Create a free account!

Sign up to see book details, our quick takes, and more.

By pressing "Sign up", you agree to Book of the Month’s Terms of use and Privacy policy.

Other books by Xochitl Gonzalez

Browse all audiobooks
Maame
Hang the Moon
Weyward
We Are the Light
White Horse
The Cloisters
Foul Lady Fortune
Camp Zero
The Nightingale
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Sourdough
Top Ten
The Great Alone
The Mars Room
Nine Perfect Strangers
The Silent Patient
Falter
The Players Ball
Bitcoin Billionaires
There's Something About Sweetie
Ask Again, Yes
Dominicana
Saving Zoë
Permanent Record
Fate of the Fallen
Wayward Son
The Family Upstairs
Ninth House
Red, White & Royal Blue
When We Were Vikings
You Are Not Alone
Anna K
Yes No Maybe So
Big Summer
The Boyfriend Project
Big Friendship
The Shadows
Head Over Heels
The Last Story of Mina Lee
One by One
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
White Ivy
Group
In a Holidaze
This Close to Okay
More Myself
Legendborn
We Could Be Heroes
Aftershocks
The City We Became
Black Buck
Honey Girl
Infinite Country
The Four Winds
What's Mine and Yours
The Final Revival of Opal & Nev
Too Good to Be True
Ariadne
Anna K Away
The Maidens
The Other Black Girl
One Last Stop
We Are the Brennans
The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina
Damnation Spring
Rock Paper Scissors
The Neighbor's Secret
Beautiful World, Where Are You
Apples Never Fall
The Book of Magic
A Little Hope
How to Marry Keanu Reeves in 90 Days
The Choice
My Body
It Ends with Us
A Flicker in the Dark
Olga Dies Dreaming
Somebody's Daughter
Reckless Girls
Love & Other Disasters
The Golden Couple
Vladimir
Don't Cry for Me
Peach Blossom Spring
The Christie Affair
Tell Me Everything
Blacktop Wasteland
Kaikeyi
Like a Sister
Bomb Shelter
Yerba Buena
Siren Queen
Bloomsbury Girls
First Born
The Many Daughters of Afong Moy
Bronze Drum
The Fortunes of Jaded Women
Kiss Her Once for Me
Lunar Love
All the Dangerous Things
Hell Bent
The Reunion
The House Is On Fire
A Wilderness of Stars
A Quiet Life
Before I Let Go
The Wilderwomen
Part of Your World
The Hotel Nantucket
Browse all audiobooks
View all
Maame
Hang the Moon
Weyward
We Are the Light
White Horse
The Cloisters
Foul Lady Fortune
Camp Zero
The Nightingale
The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
Sourdough
Top Ten
The Great Alone
The Mars Room
Nine Perfect Strangers
The Silent Patient
Falter
The Players Ball
Bitcoin Billionaires
There's Something About Sweetie
Ask Again, Yes
Dominicana
Saving Zoë
Permanent Record
Fate of the Fallen
Wayward Son
The Family Upstairs
Ninth House
Red, White & Royal Blue
When We Were Vikings
You Are Not Alone
Anna K
Yes No Maybe So
Big Summer
The Boyfriend Project
Big Friendship
The Shadows
Head Over Heels
The Last Story of Mina Lee
One by One
The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue
White Ivy
Group
In a Holidaze
This Close to Okay
More Myself
Legendborn
We Could Be Heroes
Aftershocks
The City We Became
Black Buck
Honey Girl
Infinite Country
The Four Winds
What's Mine and Yours
The Final Revival of Opal & Nev
Too Good to Be True
Ariadne
Anna K Away
The Maidens
The Other Black Girl
One Last Stop
We Are the Brennans
The Inheritance of Orquídea Divina
Damnation Spring
Rock Paper Scissors
The Neighbor's Secret
Beautiful World, Where Are You
Apples Never Fall
The Book of Magic
A Little Hope
How to Marry Keanu Reeves in 90 Days
The Choice
My Body
It Ends with Us
A Flicker in the Dark
Olga Dies Dreaming
Somebody's Daughter
Reckless Girls
Love & Other Disasters
The Golden Couple
Vladimir
Don't Cry for Me
Peach Blossom Spring
The Christie Affair
Tell Me Everything
Blacktop Wasteland
Kaikeyi
Like a Sister
Bomb Shelter
Yerba Buena
Siren Queen
Bloomsbury Girls
First Born
The Many Daughters of Afong Moy
Bronze Drum
The Fortunes of Jaded Women
Kiss Her Once for Me
Lunar Love
All the Dangerous Things
Hell Bent
The Reunion
The House Is On Fire
A Wilderness of Stars
A Quiet Life
Before I Let Go
The Wilderwomen
Part of Your World
The Hotel Nantucket