Olga and her brother “Prieto,” have always strived to make their mother proud. A mother, who most of their lives swoops in as a ghost.

Told in dual POVs, this story follows the 2 siblings trying to find their place in the world when the person who was supposed to be their anchor abandons them for her cause.

I loved how this story was constructed and especially loved the extended family dynamics.

I can't stop recommending this book, because it was one of those reads that definitely leaves a lasting impact. I found Olga and Prieto to be really impactful characters and their relationship to their mom and the politics of their community were intertwined in a way that was truly fascinating. Can't wait to read more by this author!

In Olga Dies Dreaming, we're met with an abundance of excitement. Olga, wedding planner to the elite — and her brother, Pedro, a congressman in their Latinx Brooklyn neighborhood, face the return of their mother, a hurricane of a woman who left them to lead a radical political cause and to be raised by their grandmother. Not to mention, the aftermath of an actual hurricane, Hurricane Maria. Examining familial secrets, gentrification, love, and the American Dream — this one is not to be missed!

This was a very interesting read and I enjoyed it alot. I loved both the educational background the author gave over puerto rico and the struggles minority characters can face two different cultures.

Olga, a wedding planner to the rich and famous, and Prieto, her congressman brother, it is a tale of family, politics, Brooklyn gentrification and the Puerto Rican diaspora.
I love reading Latin American books, and as a Latin myself I found that the plot was the one capturing my eyes but the writing and the overall feeling were quite mediocre.
I put it down a couple of times not wanting to be picking it up again, but then I needed to know how it ends.
Unfortunately it wasn't to my liking, but I want to thank the publisher for approving my request

I found this novel unique, intriguing, and engaging. It follows different Puerto Rican people who are connected. The first is Olga, a wedding planner in Manhattan upper class and her charismatic politician brother. Olga’s mother left them when they were little because she wished to carry out plans for a better future for Puerto Rico and became an extremist. Now their mother is back forcing secrets to come out. Themes of trying to find love and their place in the big city while also including social inequality issues are packed into this book.

I found this book captivating, engrossing, and loved the audiobook narration. It’s a story about family drama, complex health issues, choices taken that lead you down a different life, political and cultural themes.

I received this book complimentary from NetGalley but all opinions are my own.

I liked this. It was interesting and well-written. I struggle to like infidelity but the characters jumped off the page which made up for that a bit. I would read another by this author.

I had my library book club read this and on the whole I think everyone enjoyed it. I listened to it and I think that is really the best way to enjoy it.

I really enjoyed Olga’s story but thought that it was a bit too long, or didn’t go quite deep enough. Generally a good read though!

I highlighted this book on my Booktube channel. The video can be found here: https://youtu.be/Vhsxktm3fWU

Olga and her brother Pedro "Prieto" Acevedo are forces in their careers and in their hometown. Olga is a wedding planner for the elite while Prieto is a popular congressman representing their neighborhood in Brooklyn. They grow up with a radical mom who believes in the liberation of Puerto Rico while their dad, also a revolutionary, falls into the pit of drug use. As adults, they grapple with their parents' abandonment, secrets, assimilation and gentrification.

This novel went back-and-forth in past and present with letters from their mother representing the past PLUS the POV of Olga, Prieto, and Richard (which I didn't think Richard's POV was necessary). Taking place in 2017 prior to and in the wake of Hurricane Maria, this novel touches on the effects of gentrification in neighborhoods but also in the burden of assimilating to the perceived "American Dream," wealth as perceived stability, and re-discovering who you are (even as an adult). These are all very flawed characters (with the exception of Richard who is just the worst, he is the complete archetype of everything bad with corporations, capitalism, entitlement, misogyny, and fetishization) who try to atone for past sins while trying to navigate their mom's psychological abuse. Overall, I did enjoy really enjoy this book, which placed the colonization of Puerto Rico in historical context (past and present) and as the anchor of the lives of the Acevedo adults.

What a fantastic book! It took me forever to sit down with this one, and I actually ended up purchasing it outright because I wanted to pass it on to my sister after I was done, and I'm so glad I did. The characters in this book are SO real that I feel like they exist in New York City right now as I'm typing this. And because of that, no matter what bizarre plot twists the story took, it was all incredibly believable and down to earth. Olga and her brother Prieto are both fighting in their own ways to keep their culture and heritage alive (plus their sanity) in a time where money is king and influence is everything. HIGHLY recommend.

I couldn't connect with this story as much as I wanted to. The book felt a bit disjointed and the characters were not very compelling.

Olga Dies Dreaming is one of those reads that I constantly think about long after I read it, however I still have mixed feelings.
On one hand the writing was really good, but it took me so long to get into this one and I found it difficult to keep picking it up. The characters are interesting and the storyline is captivating, but there are SO many themes and topics discussed, it was hard to keep up. Olga and Prieto's storylines were the most compelling to me, but the emotion impact was not really strong, due to so many other factors happening in the book. I appreciate the historical context given around Puerto Rico, but I think it could have been more impactful if there was less going on. Once I got into the storyline, I was really into it, but it did take a bit of a push to keep going.

This started so well, with the story of two 40-something siblings of Puerto Rican descent living in New York living outwardly successful lives while continuing to reckon with the pain of their mother’s abandonment when they were teens to pursue revolution catching me almost immediately with wit and well-drawn characters. It lets its storytelling fall by the wayside for a bit in the middle in favor of info dumps, but the ending was pretty strong.

A wonderful exploration of the complexities of identity, fuzzy morals, and our responsibilities to our families, community, and ourselves. The book shifted perspective between Olga and her brother Pietro, giving them both a chance to narrate as they navigate their lives in NYC and their Puerto Rican roots. A well-rounded story with robust relationships and character development throughout. Definitely a recommended read for those who like stories of families and complicated dynamics, without a full family saga that spans centuries (this plot of this book is very well contained within just a few months to years).

Initially, I wasn't sure about the breezy tone of González' writing but the more I read, the more I liked her vibrant style. Olga is a prickly wedding planner who is so busy acquiring success that she ignores its personal costs. Her brother, a congressman, also lives a life on the surface, keeping what matters most to him covered. Interspersed with their personal narratives and awakenings is the story of their revolutionary mother, the aftermath of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and issues of gentrification in Brooklyn. Sounds like a lot but it works!

While I would NOT deem this an entertaining read in the least, it certainly held my attention. I kept turning pages hoping to get to the heart of what the novel had to say even though there wasn't just one focus to be had, it was more complex. The first chapter was so captivating (napkins!!) and the story grows wings from there. I was most intrigued by the relationship between Olga and her mother, less so between Olga and her brother though his character looms large (perhaps too much so, or perhaps he just wasn't my favorite character). I couldn't predict where Gonzalez was leading them all, so well done there. This writer will be one to watch for sure.

Brillant . I do not often read a lot of fiction but this was great as a debut author. The writing flowed and it was an easy read. Definitely made me want to prioritize more fiction in 2023

I bet I am not the only one who never read a book inspired by Puerto Rico´s social and political recent history. The brilliantly written debut novel by Xochitl Gonzalez - herself from a family with its own story of militantism - Olga Dies Dreaming is my first introduction to a topic which remains of actuality.

Olga and her brother, Prieto, are case story of successful American dream: an unnamed Ivy League graduate, she is a successful wedding planner, the ´Puerto Rican Martha Stewart´. Her brother is a local politician. But there are cracks into the picture perfect dream: Olga struggles with relationships and somehow got involved in a money laundering scheme of the Russian mafia. Prieto is divorced, gay in the closet and about to come out and recently HIV positive, blackmail by greedy real estate developers (hopefully not all real estate developers are sharks and there is a character in the book who may prove otherwise). Their mother, Blanca, left them when they were children to fight for the independence of Puerto Rico and keeps sending them self-righteous letters written in a revolutionary vein. Their father was a Vietnam war veteran who died of AIDS.

An outstanding feature of the book is the relatively balanced representation of the characters. They are multi-dimensional, complex, changing their mind during the story, making choices. They think and reflect.

The book may be considered as a literary application of the intersectionalist theory. Although in non-fiction such an approach may be very useful in understanding better the multiplicity of layers of a topic, in literature it raises significant challenges. The nastiest risk is to end up turning a narrative into an ideologically centered piece of work, to turn the story automatically biased and therefore, beyond the good and evil of creativity.

For instance, at the very beginning of the story, Olga has an inner monologue about beautiful wedding napkins as a status and class and money symbol. The idea is not bad, but it sounds very propagandistic and although capitalism is not (always) great, there are ways to show it without such an intermezzo. Also, the mother´s letters although they make sense as discourses, they are like copy pasted from some boring manifesto and sounds like a robot.

Such story switches from fiction to nonfictional messages do damage the story in my opinion and belittle the literary potential. Featuring gently ideological struggles in literature is not an easy task though and forcing up either a direction (literary) or another (ideologically) is easier than trying to keep a right balance between the two. The Patriots does it admirably and as for now, remains my favorite books featuring revolutionary mothers.

Olga Dies Dreaming is an interesting literary experiment and the prose as the strory construction promise - hopefully - future better books by Xochitl Gonzalez. The characters particularly are very dense and the dynamic between them is well pondered. Particularly the relationship between Olga and her brother are very special and one of the things I loved the most about this book.