Books are windows into the multilayered lives and experiences of others. To give a well-rounded reading experience, those narratives should include, well, everyone. As a publication that celebrates, highlights, and supports media created by Latinas, we love to find fabulous new books that reflect our varied Latinx cultures, so that we can finally see ourselves. So check out these five 2024 books, penned by Latina authors, and published this year.
The Quince Project by Jessica Parra
Many of us would have loved to have read a quinceañera-themed novel when we were growing up. Thankfully, we can now. Jessica Parra’s YA novel The Quince Project follows Castillo Torres, a teen who has her sights set on an internship with a local party planner. To gain experience prior to applying, she decides to work on a Disneyland vloggers’s quince, which only ends up complicating her already-complicated life. One problem is that she ends up crushing on the chambelán. Wednesday Books, the publisher of The Quince Project, says that “Disney lovers and fans of sweet contemporary romances will fall” for the new novel.
Sing It Like Celia by Mónica Mancillas
It is a major thing for a child to see heroes, icons, and legends who look like them in books. It gives them the inspiration to achieve and accomplish great things as well. Sing It Like Celia, by Mónica Mancillas, proves this point. In it, Chicana Salva Sanchez finds herself living in an RV with her father after her mother leaves the family without notice. In addition to her family, her mother left behind Celia Cruz’s music, which ends up helping Salva navigate her life, including the new kid’s band she joins.
Daughter of Fire by Sofia Robleda
Another of our must-read 2024 books by a Latina coming out this year is Daughter of Fire, by Sofia Robleda, which will be released on July 23rd. The real-life destruction of important historic Indigenous papers–and thus history–inspired the Mexican author to pen this novel. The story takes us on a trip to Guatemala during the sixteenth century, where we meet Catalina de Serrato, who is half Mayan and half Spanish and paired with love interest Juan de Rojas. She is navigating and balancing her two cultures – the colonized and the colonizer – while promising to preserve the Popol Vuh, the K’iche’ sacred book of creation.
The Waves Take You Home by Maria Alejandra Barrios Velez
In addition to its gorgeous cover, The Waves Take You Home by María Alejandra Barrios Vélez has a story you won’t want to miss. In it, we travel with 28-year-old Violeta Sanoguera as she leaves the U.S. for Barranquilla, Colombia after her grandmother dies. She finds herself back at home, with the food of her culture, her mother, her grandmother’s ghost, the family restaurant she was left with, and the love she had given up when she set for America. Now it is time for her to navigate it all.
American Diva: Extraordinary, Unruly, Fabulous by Deborah Paredez
The word “diva” is a loaded one. It can mean having an amazing God-given gift, while also describing someone who is incredibly difficult to deal with. Author, poet, scholar, and feminist performance critic Deborah Paredez took a deep dive into the stories of several famous women in our final selection of 2024 must-read books. It features women who have worn the dazzling term, including Aretha Franklin, Rita Moreno, Venus and Serena Williams, Celia Cruz, and her own Tia Lucia. “I wanted to know why we love and loathe divas,” Paredez shares. “I learned that divas have long been at the center of American discussions about and movements for Black and brown freedom, feminism, queer liberation, and 21st-century girlhood.”
