Dreaming of You

October 1, 2021
In this hilariously imaginative novel-in-verse, a lonely young speaker named Melisa Lozada-Oliva resurrects Mexican pop music icon Selena. Lozada-Oliva depicts the bewitched singer in everyday scenarios, such as eating pizza, watching Netflix, and perusing a book by Sandra Cisneros, but a lingering sense of the uncanny pervades each interaction"": There's a horrifying dial-up sound coming from her mouth."" The piecemeal narrative brings together sonnets composed of awkward small talk (""Do you have a favorite food . . . to eat?""), cynical haiku (""somewhere in the world / there is a cishet white man / apologizing""), and instructions for reanimating a corpse: ""say this girl's name five times while spraying Fabuloso in the air."" Lozada-Oliva expands her imagined world by extending sympathy to Selena's real-life murderer, Yolanda Saldivar, in ""Remember That Yolanda Was a Little Girl Once"": ""her mother was crying about bills and about debt and about family far away."" But horrific absurdity is never far away, as in ""Yolanda Wears Melissa's Skin into Selena's Hotel Room."" Obsessive, inventive, and exceedingly funny, Lozada-Oliva's debut sets a new platinum standard for a tricky genre.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

November 1, 2021

In Lozado-Oliva's vervy debut, a young Latina poet named Melissa so identifies with murdered singer/songwriter Selena Quintanilla that she brings her back from the dead. Initially, Melissa-as-speaker relates stumbling through young adulthood--rotten relationships, rotten feelings, multiple roommates--while recalling how Selena shaped her life ("It's like I can see her./ It's like she's talking to me"). Resurrecting her heroine through a persuasively detailed ritual proves exciting ("I want to touch her hand but.../ Would I be electrocuted?"), and if finally "No one could handle the drama," it's been a wild and illuminating ride. VERDICT Crackly and energetic, with poignancy beneath; for Latinx and millennial readers, plus poetry lovers interested in new voices.

Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 15, 2021
A young poet spirals into a world of trouble and madness after she raises Tejana pop star Selena from the dead. Full of zaniness, humor, and existential questions about the ephemeral nature of fame and the toxic misogyny permeating our culture, this novel in verse is an experimental roller-coaster ride. The book opens with a cast of characters introducing Yolanda Saldivar, Selena's convicted killer; Abraham Quintanilla, Selena's father, an excellent approximation of machismo; "Las Chismosas," a Spanish expression referring to gossips, often older women, here serving as the book's chorus; an amorphous and dark "She," like the villainess of a telenovela; "You," introduced as "the consumer and the consumed"; and lastly, Melissa Lozada-Oliva, the author and protagonist, who says simply "it's been me, it's always been me. The whole time." Las Chismosas narrate Melissa's journey as a young New York Latina who finds that her real life--writing poetry, looking for love--has been subsumed by the overpowering ghost of Selena as a cultural force. When Melissa decides to resurrect Selena, she becomes obsessively devoted to her at the expense of her own budding romantic relationship. The newly undead Selena eventually leaves Melissa to reconnect with her own career, and as she goes, whoever "Melissa Lozada-Oliva" is begins to dissolve, as well. Abraham Quintanilla, Yolanda Saldivar, and She arrive to fill the blank spaces. In this new millennium, Yolanda is reborn as an antihero, because sometimes you have to kill the thing you love most to truly be free. An enjoyably madcap journey through the wasteland of fame, popular culture, and feminine identity in a post-colonial world.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.