ShelfNotes Review
Review will not be posted on the site until closer to publication date.

Dear Reader,

This might be the first book that I've read which shows a different side of Latino women. Usually, when reading books featuring Latinos, I find the light is a little dark and the setting a little poor (literally). I recently went to see Junot Diaz speak at a local College and he cried out for more Hispanic writing, and he vividly described what it's like to be a minority watching TV and reading books that are full of characters that live a completely different life. The Author, Desiree, gives us a side that reminds us of those similarities and gives us everything that is relatable within all different races. I love that! I gobbled up this story and felt SO much along the way, I didn't feel like an outsider peering into a secret life I knew nothing about. This is where I think we need to get, this is where we need to overcome the thought that people are so different, because deep down WE ARE THE SAME!

Okay, enough of the rant... let's get back to the book. The Amado Women is beautifully tragic, three daughters and a mother get together for family gatherings and each time we see the bonds change between them. The mother, Mercy, who is a proud woman with strength and conviction. The eldest sister, Celeste, who broke free of the family early on (only to succeed in her occupation to make her quite wealthy). The middle child, Sylvia, married young and ends up raising two daughters. The youngest daughter, Nataly, who jumps from ship to ship without figuring out her place in life. Each daughter has an extremely compelling story, we become enveloped with the hurt and/or excitement each one feels.

Starting with Nataly, who can't settle down or live a productive money-making life. I know this person, the artist... the one who struggles to follow her passion but is clueless to the stress it causes others in her life. I felt very close to Nataly because I consider myself an Artist, but I didn't go down the road Nataly did... I was too worried I wouldn't be able to support myself sufficiently. I admire this character but also know that life as an artist is too difficult to cling to that hope, reality bites!

Her sister, Sylvia, has a very different approach with life, marrying an abusive husband and having two children. I know many people who would also relate to this woman, and maybe open the eyes of some to see how horrible living that way is. I found myself relating to this character quite a bit when she started thinking about the big "D" word. How her mother kept nagging her and reminding her that she needed to stay with her husband to be financially secure and for the children, it gave me flashbacks to my own divorce and the way my family handled it.

Then we have, Celeste, the one with "everything", but we quickly realize that she has just as much heartbreak (if not more) than the other two sisters. Money doesn't buy everything, we all know this but sometimes someone hides behind it in order to clear their mind from the tragedy they've experienced. So life like! Every character sweeps in on a cloud of truth dust, I found myself in awe of how connected I felt with all of them... even though each one was so different.

The Author really touches on some realistic issues people go through, in all walks of life AND in all races. I love that this novel might strike a conversation outside of social norms, this would be the perfect book for a book club. Just imagine, sharing personal tragedies or triumphs and recognizing that the person next to you is very much the same. Okay, that happens from time to time. However, the times I've felt close to characters with a different background than me are few and far between. Desiree does this with The Amado Women and I believe every woman should pick this book up and feel that connection too!

Happy Reading,
AmberBug ( )

The publisher of Désirée Zamorano’s The Amado Women is Cinco Puntos Press—a publisher I’ve just discovered, but I’ll be on the lookout for any new works they publish. I have been lucky enough to receive electronic ARCs of three of their latest books. Cinco Puntos describes its mission in this way: “With roots on the U.S./Mexico border, Cinco Puntos publishes great books which make a difference in the way you see the world.” Based on my reading of the first of the three ARCs I’ve received, I have to say that they’re accomplishing that mission quite nicely.

The Amado Women, set primarily in 2001-2, follows the adult lives of three sisters and their mother. All of them are middle-class Latinas. The sisters, Celeste, Sylvia, and Nataly have taken very different directions in life, becoming estranged from one another. Celeste is an investment manager and more affluent than the others. Sylvia is a mother of two daughters and has husband who isn’t around much—and wose ife would improve markedly if he were around even less. Nataly is an artist getting by on her day job. Their mother, Mercy, divorced her philandering husband years ago and is committed to her job as a grade school teacher.

While the sisters’s relationship is rocky, they can become fiercely protective of one another in times of crisis. This tension between resentment and loyalty drives the novel. As they face increasingly difficult challenges, their loyalty becomes increasingly important.

Zamorano has explained that part of her purpose in writing this novel was to present Latina women living lives beyond the few stereotypical roles assigned to them in most fiction and film: sexy temptresses or impoverished immigrants. In other words, this isn’t a novel that reflects the way the larger world perceives Latinas; it’s a novel that clearly depicts a reality many Latinas live, one which popular culture is largely blind to. Zanorano’s determination to broaden popular perceptions of Latinas is well-suited to the mission of Cinco Puntos Press.

Zamorano is also a playwright, and the dialogue in her novel reflects this fact. The voices of the characters are distinctive and genuine, easy for the reader to hear in her own head as she makes her way through the novel. The quality of this dialogue is matched by the quality of the women’s internal monologues. The book moves between action and reflection skillfully, creating a balance between the two.

The Amado Women is an engaging powerful read, one that I strongly recommend. I’d also recommend looking for additional work by this author and from this publisher. ( )

The Amado Women, Désireé Zamorano
Cinco Puntos Press
978-1-935955-73-3
$16.95, 234 pgs

"So this is what I thought that night...I thought, I will not sleep through my life. I am going to live it awake." - Mercy Amado

forgiveness - synonyms: pardon, absolution, exoneration, remission, dispensation, indulgence, clemency, mercy

Our cast:

Mercedes (Mercy) Amado – divorced mother of three, grandmother, teacher

Celeste Amado – eldest daughter, divorced, investment manager, borderline (?) alcoholic

Sylvia Amado Levine – middle child, married mother of two, housewife, Russian lit expert

Nataly Amado – youngest daughter, single, textile artist, bohemian

One of the remarkable things about The Amado Women by Désireé Zamorano is that it is indistinguished. No no no, hold on – allow me to explain. From the above cast descriptions you cannot know the ethnic backgrounds of these women. Their backgrounds could be Italian, Albanian, Egyptian, Welsh. It strikes me as ridiculous in the year 2014 to feel the need to say this: These ladies are Latinas and yet not one lives in the barrio; there are no maids, no chicken-plucking line workers, no yardmen, no halting English or standing around in parks or on street corners waiting for work. They are vibrant women living in California in the twenty-first century – suburbia, Silicon Valley, metropolitan Los Angeles. No one should have to point this out this late in the game: The Amado women are simply, and complexly, American. The lack of stereotypes frees them to just be human and that is such a relief, que no?

Our story begins with a mystery and a crime. Sylvia’s 10-year marriage is falling apart – no, actually it’s being ripped apart and stomped on. Her husband Jack is a successful attorney with all the trappings: McMansion, Ralph Lauren socks, inappropriate landscaping. But Sylvia has discovered that they’re practically broke. What has Jack done with all of their money? That’s the mystery. The crime is that Sylvia (and one of the children) is being stomped on, quite literally, by Jack. Sylvia collects all of the financial paperwork she can find, the clues to the mystery, and sends it to her sister Celeste, the investment manager. Celeste will be able to solve the mystery and track down the missing funds. Except that the brilliant, prudent, and skillful Celeste can’t – the money has disappeared without a trace. There’s no trail to follow and this is the worst clue of all because “…In Celeste’s business, missing money meant addiction: drugs, sex, gambling.”

The Amado Women is well-plotted and skillfully paced. Désireé Zamorano is accomplished at creating atmosphere, especially the menace radiating from Jack. There’s a sexual assault scene between husband and wife that had me shrinking in my chair – the scene powerful enough to evoke self-preservation, instinctively making myself a smaller target. As talented as she is at atmospherics, Ms. Zamorano’s triumph is her characters and her portrayal of the individual histories that converge to form tangled family relationships. In the face of tragedy and the turmoil of the aftermath, these four very different women must come together to form a united whole. Can they do it? This will require forgiveness from each to the other but first, and possibly more difficult, they will have to forgive themselves.

Désireé Zamorano is a playwright, Pushcart Prize nominee for fiction, and the director of the Community Literacy Center at Occidental College. She also collaborates with InsideOut Writers, a program that works with formerly incarcerated youth. ( )

An intense story about an Hispanic family in Los Angeles--a mother, her three daughters, and her two granddaughters--who face tragedies, fight with each other, and work together for shared goals.

The women of the Amado family are all different. Each hides her own secrets and is sometimes hostile to the others. But they are bound together because they are mothers, daughters, and sisters. Mercy is the mother, divorced from a weak, useless man. At sixty, she keeps herself looking attractive and is deeply involved in her third-grade classroom. Celeste is the oldest sister, bright, sophisticated, wealthy, and aloof. Sylvia is the married one, with two young daughters, Miriam and Becky, and an abusive husband. Nataly is the youngest, an artist and waitress who can’t get her life together. At first, tragedy seems to make them less able to cooperate, but gradually they share secrets and struggles.

Their story is full of crises that pull readers along. The family is Hispanic and has lived in the US for generations. They still enjoy bits of their culture and its distinctive foods, and they bristle when they feel put down for their ethnicity. In other ways, their lives are not very different from other women in this country, although none of us wants to share their particular crises. Like many of us, they all bear heavy, unrealistic burdens of guilt that they need to release. Much of their story is about what it means to be a daughter or a mother or a sister. As Mercy reflects about her grown daughters, she realizes that a mother loses her daughters everyday as they grow and change into their own persons.
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