The Assimilated Cuban's Guide to Quantum Santeria | 
"My name is Desideria Belén Ayute, and I am the sixty-one-year-old executive producer for ¿A Quién Quieres Matar?, the reality-TV show where we find fulanos who want to hire a hit man and get them to admit on hidden camera all the filthy details. Oh, it‘s a good show."
-"Los Simpáticos"
"So my dad left and I helped my asiMom clear dinner. After we finished, she said “You are a good son.” And then she added, "If you would like me to increase the amount of praise I give you, please say ‘Increase praise‘ at any time.""
-"The Macrobe Conservation Project"
Kind of living the dream. ??
A friend asked Facebook:
“What‘s a great read for the summer? Not necessarily something light, but something evocative of the heat & spirit of the summer, perhaps with a magical or surreal element to it.”
What would you recommend? I restricted myself to a Top 5 list (+1 😅):
A Tale for the Time Being
The Assimilated Cuban‘s Guide to Quantum Santeria
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
Sing, Unburied, Sing
Reincarnation Blues
(+ Tuck Everlasting)
1. Green/blue/gray
2. Angel (I‘m a rabid BtVS fan & I‘ve never seen all of the spin-off! 😱) & Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee.
3. The tagged book dropped a lot of colloquial Spanish phrases; I needed to translate. I also read a short bio on Rachel Carson & looked up things like “reindeer moss” & “ghost crabs.”
4. Ketchup
5. Working. What I *want* to do is watch “Dirty Dancing” & down a pitcher of some delightful, boozy watermelon concoction. 🍉
pickFunny, creative, thought-provoking, culturally-diverse, & the absolute best kind of weird! “The Assimilated Cuban‘s Guide to Quantum Santeria” is one of the most enjoyable books I‘ve read all year. If not for the poor print quality (bright white pages, awkward spacing, & several typos), I‘d have almost nothing to complain about. Oh, except for the time Hernandez writes, “I make a wtf face.” I bet you can guess my reaction to that sentence. 🙄👇🏻
“There is nothing so beautiful in the world as the oversized moon of a silent movie.”
“She didn‘t even need to shower because she was just a robot, but she did anyway. My dad said that made her more realistic. But if they cared about that, why didn‘t they give her nipples? Or any hair except on her head? She didn‘t even have a butt crack. Sometimes, just when I was forgetting that she wasn‘t my real mom, I‘d remember that she didn‘t have a butt crack and I‘d get a little freaked out.”
These stories are KILLING me! 😂🤖🍑
“I have no idea how to have panda sex. What if I‘m terrible?”
Things you don‘t expect to read on a quiet Thursday morning. 😅
Husband‘s grillin‘. I‘m chillin‘. 📖🍺🌭
My IRL short stories book club settled on our next book & I could not be more excited! Purported to be great for fans of Kij Johnson & Kelly Link, and I am avidly both. Plus: look at that cover! 😍🔮📖
I'm in Denver for my husband's family reunion. I picked this book to read because one of them is an evangelical Christian who disapproves of my existence and I thought it would make his butt pucker up nicely. 😈
"Spanish guys come from Spain. I'm Puerto Rican." From the third story, "Entanglements."
With story titles like this one, how can you not be intrigued?
This was a quirky #latinx sci-fi fantasy collection from a South of the Border perspective. In my favorite story, a right wing militiaman trying to keep America safe from (Mexican) aliens instead meets an (extraterrestrial) alien who transmutes his vehicle into Margaret Thatcher.
That probably sounds either awesome or really dumb. Let that be a guide to whether this collection is for you.
The Aphotic Ghost - First story in this collection felt like a teaser for a novel, I want more of these characters!
pickI read this over the weekend for the #readathon, and I thought it was great fun! It's a speculative fiction short story collection, a bit like if Junot Diaz wrote episodes of Black Mirror. Really wacky, funny stuff. 📚❤🤘🏻
pickHot Zen tea in a Yoda mug, pirate pajama pants, fall afternoon, sci-fi short stories. Only thing that could make this better would be if my poor pupdog wasn't in pain from surgery yesterday. (she wouldn't even pose for a picture).
One of the stories was really weird and I'll never look at pandas the same way again. It wasn't bad weird though. i loved the mix of sci-fi and spiritual.
Finally getting around to this book I received for backing Rosarium Publishing on Indiegogo. Got to support diverse storytelling!
Time for some short stories. One of the few books i have picked up without hearing anything about it first. i didn't even know it was short stories.
pickThere is a story in this collection where a journalist must put on a panda suit and simulate panda sex with her ex-lover in virtual reality in order to save the pandas. Enough said.
pickI'm torn on this one. Hernandez is an excellent writer, and I loved a couple of stories but found myself missing the human element in others. I did really appreciate the Latinx representation, though, and overall this is a well-written collection that I haven't been able to stop thinking about.
so-soFor people who like their sci-fi mixed liberally with fantasy and religion. I think everyone will look at the title and cover and instantly know if this is an "Absolutely" or a "Hell No." It's a short story collection, so is going to be spotty.
