Candelaria : a novel

"Candelaria is a masterpiece from a writer destined to produce many." — Jamie Loftus, author of Raw Dog "Candelaria sticks to your soul & leaves you seeing the world & the people in it a bit differently." — Xochitl Gonzalez, Pulitzer Prize Finalist & 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 & 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 Buffet—for a reason you still cannot disclose—battling strange entities & your own strange past to save your granddaughters & possibly the world. Author of Dreaming of You Melissa Lozada-Oliva delivers an unsettling, raucous debut novel written with tongue-in-cheek humor & sharp cultural criticism that unearths one troubled family’s legacy, feasting on diasporic identity politics & examining the limits of bodily autonomy & the dangers of wanting to belong at any cost. A sweeping, mystical novel following three generations of women as they grapple with muddled pasts & predetermined futures, Candelaria is a story of love that eats us alive.°°° Melissa Lozada-Oliva is the child of Guatemalan & Colombian immigrants & the author of Dreaming of You & peluda. Her work has been featured in NPR, Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, PAPER, Armani Beauty, & more. She is a member of the band Meli & the Specs. She holds an MFA in poetry from NYU & lives in New York City. A Best Book of 2023 - USA Today , Vogue.com, HipLatina, Largehearted Boy "With tongue-in-cheek humor and sharp cultural criticism, this novel is an unforgettable exploration of diasporic identity politics and the dangers of wanting to belong at any cost." —Xochitl Gonzalez, The TODAY Show "Lozada-Oliva's apocalyptic debut novel in prose is an ode to complicated family dynamics, the overwhelming ways love can consume and eat us alive." —Pamela Avila, USA Today 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 Buffet—for a reason you still cannot disclose—battling 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 family’s 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. "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...M.F "A sweeping, mystical, intergenerational novel about mothers, daughters, and unsettled pasts, Candelaria is a story of predetermined futures and love that eats us alive"-- Provided by publisher