This blog post brought to you by Paulina at Valencia Library.
Ok, prepárate. It’s about to get super cursi up in here.
It hit me while reading Her Perfect Affair by Priscilla Oliveras. I’m a complete sucker for romance. There, I said it. I can trace it back as early as my first telenovela (or at least the one that left the biggest impression on me as a kid—yup, that's right, a kid) Cañaveral de Pasiones. You see, I spent summers in México going to church every. single. day with my Mami Cata (maternal grandmother) but also indulging in the melodramatic amor—hasta que la muerte nos separe of soaps in Spanish, every afternoon. A healthy balance really... OMG, this little trip down memory lane took me back to the days I’d listen to Los Tucanes de Tijuana’s Mundo de Amor and Shania Twain’s You’re Still the One (mind you, I was nursing a broken heart with the hopes that my boyfriend of a few days [kidding not kidding] would want to get back together with me even though I had broken up with him in the first place, I think, but I digress...) on repeat on my Walkman.
And so I age myself… sigh.
Fast forward to, well, now. Here we are with a romance booklist by yours truly on Mes de la Cultura. All done purposefully. Why? Well, growing up I didn’t see myself in too many of the books I read until I got to college and majored in Spanish and that makes me really sad (it’s actually a lot more complex than that but I’ll leave it for another post perhaps) because, well hell (can you say “hell?!”), I deserve to see myself in the books I love so much (and so do our kids, by the way, especially our kids). Simple as that. Representation matters. I urge you then, to go forth and enjoy the capirotada of Latinx love that I’ve compiled for you with, you've guessed it, love. Couldn’t help myself. ¡Hasta pronto!
