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Candelaria
Candelaria: A Novel | Melissa Lozada-Oliva
2 posts | 1 read | 1 to read
"Candelaria is a masterpiece from a writer destined to produce many." Jamie Loftus, author of Raw Dog "Candelaria sticks to your soul and leaves you seeing the world and the people in it a bit differently." Xochitl Gonzalez, Pulitzer Prize Finalist and author of Olga Dies Dreaming Julia Alvarez's How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents meets Cormac McCarthy's The Road Your granddaughters are lost, Candelaria. Bianca, the brainy archaeologist, had to forfeit her life's work in Guatemala after her advisor seduced and deserted her. Paola, missing for over a decade, resurfaces in Boston as a brainwashed wellness cultist named Zoe. And Candy, the youngest, is a recovering addict who finds herself pregnant by a man she's not even sure ever existed. None of this concerns you of course, until a cataclysmic earthquake hits Boston. Now you must traverse the crumbling city to reach the Watertown Mall Old Country Buffetfor a reason you still cannot disclosebattling strange entities and your own strange past to save your granddaughters and possibly the world. Author of Dreaming of You Melissa Lozada-Oliva delivers an unsettling, raucous debut novel written with tongue-in-cheek humor and sharp cultural criticism that unearths one troubled familys legacy, feasting on diasporic identity politics and examining the limits of bodily autonomy and the dangers of wanting to belong at any cost. A sweeping, mystical novel following three generations of women as they grapple with muddled pasts and predetermined futures, Candelaria is a story of love that eats us alive.
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review
steph_phanie
Candelaria: A Novel | Melissa Lozada-Oliva
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Mehso-so

⭐️⭐️⭐️ - I MAY CHANGE MY MIND, OKAY?!
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What a wild ride. Funny, insane, bewildering. I consumed it (yes, pun intended, iykyk) rather quickly, BUT I don't think I loved it. Some confusion is fine, and I KNOW it is magical realism, but I wanted a little more revealed. Because WHAT THE HECK actually happened?! I think this was just a bit beyond what I was prepared for, though I am not sure anyone can be prepared. Buckle up if you pick this one up!

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steph_phanie
Candelaria: A Novel | Melissa Lozada-Oliva
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This is such a wild ride. I'm halfway through and am quite bewildered. I'm enjoying it, I think. 😆 I get the feeling that I'm going to reach the end, have an Aha! moment, and want to read it again.