Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez
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Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochitl Gonzalez

Contemporary fiction

Olga Dies Dreaming

Debut
Early Release

by Xochitl Gonzalez

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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.

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Other books by Xochitl Gonzalez

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Dirty Diana
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Most Eligible
Crying in H Mart
Passion Project
Black Cake
Penitence
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Spitting Gold
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Olga Dies Dreaming
Somebody's Daughter
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Kaikeyi
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The Mothers
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Too Much Is Not Enough
All That You Leave Behind
To the Moon and Back
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All of Us with Wings
Frankly in Love
The Stars and the Blackness Between Them
Trick Mirror
The Girl with the Louding Voice
The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P
A Burning
The Boy in the Red Dress
Fleishman Is in Trouble
The Beauty in Breaking
The Comeback
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What Comes After
Things We Lost to the Water
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The Keeper of Night
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Four Weekends and a Funeral
The Compound
The Man No One Believed
All the Tomorrows After
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Debut authors
View all
Yesteryear
The Mayor of Maxwell Street
The Names
Love & Other Disasters
Count My Lies
Violet Thistlewaite Is Not a Villain Anymore
Weyward
The Love Hypothesis
Shark Heart
Lunar Love
The Exes
Good People
This Story Might Save Your Life
Lady Tremaine
Vladimir
Lessons in Chemistry
The Sun Was Electric Light
Red, White & Royal Blue
A Good Person
Dirty Diana
Alive Day
Liquid
Maggie; or, A Man and a Woman Walk Into a Bar
More
Honey
Silver Elite
Flat Earth
Most Eligible
Crying in H Mart
Passion Project
Black Cake
Penitence
The Road of Bones
Spitting Gold
The Maid
The House of My Mother
Among Friends
Dinner for Vampires
You Between the Lines
A Thousand Times Before
Ariadne
Aftertaste
The Days I Loved You Most
The Wives
Here After
The Wishing Game
Did I Ever Tell You?
Middletide
The Teller of Small Fortunes
Northwoods
A Flicker in the Dark
A Short Walk Through a Wide World
The Storm We Made
Neighbors and Other Stories
Finding Grace
The Other Valley
Hard by a Great Forest
Maame
Thistlefoot
The Other Black Girl
Age of Vice
Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?
One Day in December
Paper Names
We Are the Brennans
The Last Russian Doll
Olga Dies Dreaming
Somebody's Daughter
Beautiful Country
Dearest
Kaikeyi
The Fortunes of Jaded Women
Sign Here
The Stranger Upstairs
Damnation Spring
The Verifiers
A Little Hope
In Every Mirror She's Black
Taste Makers
Fiona and Jane
Yinka, Where Is Your Huzband?
Camp Zero
The Last Story of Mina Lee
The Final Revival of Opal & Nev
My Body
Honey Girl
Big Friendship
Black Buck
White Ivy
White Horse
Peach Blossom Spring
Behold the Dreamers
The Mothers
The Animators
Marlena
Sharp Objects
The Girl Who Smiled Beads
Small Country
Golden Child
Small Fry
Too Much Is Not Enough
All That You Leave Behind
To the Moon and Back
Leaving the Witness
All of Us with Wings
Frankly in Love
The Stars and the Blackness Between Them
Trick Mirror
The Girl with the Louding Voice
The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P
A Burning
The Boy in the Red Dress
Fleishman Is in Trouble
The Beauty in Breaking
The Comeback
The Prophets
Girl A
What Comes After
Things We Lost to the Water
The Family
The Keeper of Night
Win Me Something
Four Weekends and a Funeral
The Compound
The Man No One Believed
All the Tomorrows After
The Second Chance Cinema
How to Kill a Guy in Ten Dates
Annie Knows Everything
Porcupines
Dissection of a Murder
The Lowe Job
Nymph
Summer’s Never Over
The Shrouded Queen
Hopeless Necromantic