Home Feed
Home
Search
Search
Add Review, Blurb, Quote
Add
Activity
Activity
Profile
Profile
Liliana's Invincible Summer
Liliana's Invincible Summer: A Sister's Search for Justice | Cristina Rivera Garza
6 posts | 6 read | 12 to read
A haunting, unforgettable memoir about a beloved younger sister and the painful memory of her murder, from one of Mexicos greatest living writers (Jonathan Lethem). I seek justice, I finally said. I seek justice for my sister. . . . Sometimes it takes twenty-nine years to say it out loud, to say it out loud on a phone call with a lawyer at the General Attorneys office: I seek justice. September 2019. Cristina Rivera Garza travels from her home in Texas to Mexico City, in search of an old, unresolved criminal file. My name is Cristina Rivera Garza, she wrote in her request to the attorney general, and I am writing to you as a relative of Liliana Rivera Garza, who was murdered on July 16, 1990. Its been twenty-nine years. Twenty-nine years, three months, and two days since Liliana was murdered by an abusive ex-boyfriendand Cristina knows there is only a slim chance of recovering the file. And yet, inspired by feminist movements across the world and enraged by the global epidemic of femicide and intimate partner violence, she embarks on a path toward justice. Lilianas Invincible Summer is the accountand the outcomeof that extraordinary quest. In luminous, poetic prose, Rivera Garza tells a singular yet universally resonant story: that of a spirited, wondrously hopeful young woman who tried to survive in a world of increasingly normalized gendered violence. Following her decision to recover her sisters file, Rivera Garza traces the history of Lilianas life, from her early romance with a handsome but possessive and short-tempered man, to that exhilarating final summer of 1990 when Liliana loved, thought, and traveled more widely and freely than she ever had before. Using her remarkable talents as an acclaimed scholar, novelist, and poet, Rivera Garza collected and curated evidencehandwritten letters, police reports, school notebooks, interviews with Lilianas loved onesto render and understand a life beyond the crime itself. Through this remarkable and genre-defying memoir, Rivera Garza confronts the trauma of losing her sister and examines from multiple angles how this tragedy continues to shape who she isand what she fights fortoday.
LibraryThing
blurb
DyAnne
post image

Went to a work training, for which I will not be paid, so I treated myself to an indie bookstore visit. 💗

quote
BittersweetBooks
post image

Living in grief is this: never being alone. Invisible but evident in many ways, the presence of the dead accompanies us in the tiny interstices of the days. Over the shoulder, inside the folds of our voice, within the echo of each step. Above the windows, on the edge of the horizon, among the shadows of the trees. They are always there, and here, with and inside us, shrouding us with their warmth, protecting us from the open ❤️‍🩹

ChaoticMissAdventures I thought this was so well done. 8mo
19 likes1 stack add1 comment
review
Amor4Libros
post image
Pickpick

Cristina pays tribute to her little sister, Liliana, in this powerful book.

Told using Liliana‘s letters to her friends and family plus interviews with the people who were closest to her and loved her, Cristina tries to bring forth justice for her sister‘s murder by her ex-boyfriend.

A must-read! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

33 likes1 stack add
review
ChaoticMissAdventures
post image
Pickpick

This is a deeply personal and well put together story about the murder of the author's younger sister at the hands of her boyfriend. Rivera Garza pulls together letters and interviews with Liliana's friends as she draws a picture of the bright light Liliana was, and tells of her last moments.
A fantastic book, i liked the narrators voice but wish there were multiple people narrating b/c I found myself confused a few times as to was speaking

35 likes1 stack add
review
Chelsea.Poole
post image
Pickpick

Liliana was murdered by her boyfriend, taken away as a vibrant young college student in Mexico City, what‘s termed “femicide” there. Garza, her sister, writes this book to bring her sister back to life through journal entries, letters, and childhood memories. It‘s obvious she wrote this for herself and less for the reader. The grief is palpable and Liliana jumps off the page. Not typical true crime, but instead a vivid portrayal of a lost sister.

77 likes2 stack adds
review
Hooked_on_books
post image
Pickpick

Cristina‘s younger sister Liliana was murdered in 1990 by her ex-boyfriend. Here, Cristina celebrates Liliana‘s life, showing the reader who she was and the great potential she carried. She hints at miscarriages of justice (the perpetrator went on the run and has not been found), but doesn‘t heavily explore that, making the book‘s subtitle inaccurate. But it is a lovely tribute to a loved sister.

NBA shortlist, nonfiction

DinoMom Your reading companion is so cute!! 13mo
Hooked_on_books @DinoMom Thank you! That‘s Bindi. She really wanted my rice. 😂 13mo
53 likes2 stack adds2 comments