Olga is enjoying a successful career as a wedding planner in Manhattan, catering (while also capitalizing off of ) very wealthy clients. I enjoyed the cultural tie ins about her Puerto Rican family and riots. The character development in this book was also very good. From the descriptions of the spoiled and wealthy, to the politicians, Xochitl Gonzales does a stellar job at allowing the reader to truly feel the characters. However, I struggled to finish this, as I just couldn’t get into the story line. I kept waiting for more and it never came. Overall it was a good book.
***huge thanks to NetGalley for the ARC

Content warning: verbal abuse, diagnosis of chronic illness, violence, rape

We all struggle with uncovering who we want to be and if we aren’t careful end up being guided on this journey strictly by what motivates us–even if the motivation comes from a bad place. In Xochitl Gonzalez’s Olga Dies Dreaming the titular character Olga Acevedo and her brother Pedro “Prieto” Acevedo contend with the reality of who they have become in 2017 against who they want to be.

It’s 2017 in New York City and life is what it is. For the Acevedo siblings of Brooklyn this means Prieto roams around the city on official politician business that he feels shows how connected he is to the people he represents while also maintaining his status as a middle of the road representative. As long as his pre-teen daughter has no complaints and his constituents aren’t up in arms, Prieto Acevedo is sure he’s doing an all around good job at being exactly who he needs to be—mostly. Olga, on the other hand, cannot let who she needs to be occupy too much of her mind. Her wealthy wedding clientele ensure that as long as she continues to be a highly sought after wedding planner that can cater to their greatest wedding whims, she’ll never be in need. While their lives bear all the hallmarks of successful adulthood, there is a voice that regularly reminds them of how disappointing they truly are: their erstwhile revolutionary mother. Having left them to be raised by the rest of their family in adolescence, their mother has nevertheless made her thoughts on their choices well known in her sole form of communication to the pair since her exile, via letters. Each letter reprimands Prieto as a sellout who is a disappointment to the very people he aims to represent every day that he fails to disavow working with rich donors and advocate for the most progressive of policies. They say much the same about Olga’s clientele and question how much she’s truly inherited from her parent’s revolutionary bent.

On the face, neither sibling seems to have internalized these attacks on their personhood. But that could very well be because of the personal secrets they each have worked hard to obscure from public view. Prieto’s secret—though not so secret within the family—surfaces in the most traumatic of ways and how he deals with it becomes aligned with the pressures he’s faced professionally. Olga’s secret is in no danger of becoming revealed despite the number of TV appearances she makes or how long she is in the public eye. But as soon as she gets into one of the deepest romantic relationships of her life, she begins to question her choices and whether her mother’s critiques were right all along. When Hurricane Maria hits and their mother reveals her location and occupation in Puerto Rico, both siblings are tested as they figure out what they will do to resolve all of their decisions, personal and political, which are intertwined as much as they are for everyone else.

Olga Dies Dreaming is a story about adulthood and all the choices we make along the way of defining what we want our lives to be. What name are we expected to live up to? Which needs do we prioritize? What does it all mean when you’re not sure what the ‘right’ choice is?

Olga wants to focus on growing her wedding planning business and most ignore her own love life in favor of creating magical experiences for the wealthy. Much to the annoyance of her mother Blanca who despite leaving her family for a “greater cause” twenty seven years ago yet finds time to write to her children and tell them what they are doing wrong and how they are wasting their potential. She’s got a criticism for absolutely everything. Prieto, Olga’s older brother, is a congressman who wants to do good for his neighborhood and community but has found that his idealistic plans have no place in the political world. He has secrets that hold him hostage and are used against him by more corrupt politicians.

Both siblings have issues and have suffered from their tumultuous upbringing. Now I’m their 40s though it might be time to actually get their personal lives in order. There’s a lot going on in the book from their careers to their personal live and their family to the corrupt politicians and their radical activist mother. There’s a lot about Hurricane Maria and the devastation brought on by it in Puerto Rico. This book isn’t a light read but it’s is a good read/listen. I liked it a lot and it’s very well written. I really liked the relationship between Olga and Prieto, did not for a moment like their mother at all. Can’t wait to read what the author comes up with next. The narration was great I like books with multiple narrators.

I definitely picked this story because of the gorgeous cover, but stayed for the story!

OLGA DIES DREAMING is a multilayered story with complex characters that end up feeling like family.

Personally, I love alternating between audio and physical copies of books and this audiobook was GREAT! I especially loved having 3 narrators to help distinguish the different perspectives being told.

If you enjoy stories about family dynamics that will encourage you to think, reflect, and want to discuss complex topics (like culture, identity, and the American dream), I think you will love this one.

Thank you Netgalley for the digital audiobook in exchange for an honest review.

"Olga Dies Dreaming", by Xóchitl González is the novel everyone seems to be talking about right now. It's a story full of Puerto Rican history and culture (which I loved). It follows the lives of Olga and Prieto, two siblings who have,on the surface, attained success and are living "the American dream". Under the surface though, they are still battling the fact that their mother abandoned them as children in order to fight for the liberation of Puerto Rico, and how that affected their decisions throughout their lives.

While it seemed like this novel would be a favorite for me based on the synopsis, I feel like I liked the idea of the book more than the execution of it. The book felt too long for me, and tried to cover too much ground. I enjoyed learning a lot about Puerto Rican history, but found that I wasn't really becoming invested in any of the characters. Unfortunately, while there were parts I enioyed in the book, I often found myself bored with it.

The narration, performed by Almarie Guerra, Armando Riesco, and Inés del Castillo, really kept the book going for me. It would have probably taken me a lot longer to finish this book, if it weren't for the audio format. The dialogue really came to life in the audiobook, and there was a lot of passion in the storytelling all throughout. Even if I wasn't particularly invested in what was happening, I would be brought back into the story by the narrators.

Overall, I felt this book was alright. Perhaps it was overhyped, which made it fall a bit flat to me. Perhaps it just wasn't a good fit for me at the time. All I can confidently say is that if you are interested in it, I do recommend the audio format, as the narrators do a wonderful performance. Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Xochitl Gonzalez's debut novel is a powerful, well-written saga of family, heritage, politics, sexuality, secrets, and lies.

In 2017, Olga Acevedo is a sought-after wedding planner for NYC‘s elite, while her older brother Prieto is an affable U.S. congressman representing their Brooklyn neighborhood. But while their lives seem charmed from the outside, in private, things aren’t as perfect. Olga can make magic happen for couples but can’t find her own happiness, and Prieto is haunted by secrets and decisions that he has made.

There is much to love about Gonzalez’s novel, and I found both Olga and Prieto to be fascinating characters. But while I found the book spot-on in its indictment of America’s cruelty toward Puerto Rico, I lost interest in the book when it focused on their mother and her schemes in Puerto Rico.

This was so good. Excellent narration. The narrator’s did a great job of capturing the characters. beautiful writing. Great context and accurate historical backdrop.

Xochitl Gonzalez is a force! I was blown away by Olga Dies Dreaming, because, in addition to being a unique plot with captivating character arcs, it's a remarkably engrossing novel. It isn't fast-paced, but it kept me coming back everyday. I felt like the characters became part of my own personal consciousness while I was immersed in the book, and they've stuck with me long after I finished! I think this is a huge testament to Gonzalez' ability to craft a novel, to develop unique, relatable, complex, perfectly flawed characters who make us feel the whole spectrum of emotions.

I also want to make sure to comment on the narrator! She did an incredible job bringing the prose, the dialogue, the whole of Olga's world to life. She added complexity and tenacity to each character that kept me completely engrossed in the story.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for this advance audiobook!

I'm not sure I would have loved Olga Dies Dreaming so much had I not experienced the audiobook. It was narrated by Inés del Castillo, Almarie Guerra, and Armando Riesco. They really brought the characters of Olga, her brother Prieto and their mother, Blanca to life with exquisite accents and dialects.

What I most appreciated was the first few chapters of getting to know sassy Olga in New York City. She's a wildly popular wedding planner and her brother is a closeted Congressman. The present day story was very entertaining, especially as she describes her life and love interests. And then we're taken on flashbacks to her past, growing up and being abandoned by her mother.

Give this one a try and you'll learn a lot about Puerto Rican politics!

While I know that the important content of this book lies in the details of families and Puerto Rico, I would love to hear more about Olga and her wedding business pre-Olga Dies Dreaming.

The mother's letters drove me crazy, but I got it in the end. She definitely came off as intended.

I don't know much about Puerto Rico and it was interesting to read about.

Olga is a 40-year-old wedding planner. Her brother Prieto is a Democratic Congressman. They were born and raised in Brooklyn. Both of their parents were political activists but their father died of AIDS so they were raised by their aunt and their grandmother. Their mother left them when they were teenagers and never came back. They don’t know where she is and the only contact they’ve had are some letters that she sends them sometimes and that we get to read interspersed within the chapters. Through these letters it becomes clear that their mother is a radical activist fighting for the Independence Movement in Puerto Rico and that she wants them to fight for Puerto Rico too.

This book has a little bit of everything: a strong sense of family, romantic love, history, cultural elements and the fight for human rights. I loved the story, the characters, the representation and learning a little bit about some of the sociopolitical conflicts that the Puerto Rican community is experiencing, both in Puerto Rico and in New York.

This is so much more than a political story. It also explores the importance of being true to yourself and belonging to a family, a culture and a community.

Olga Dies Dreaming truly is one of the most powerful books I’ve read in a while. I alternated between listening to the book and reading the physical copy. If you are planning on reading this one, I highly recommend the audiobook which is narrated by Almarie Guerra, Armando Riesco and Inés del Castillo. They did a fantastic job with the different voices and accents. I particularly enjoyed the narration of the letters. Thank you Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for the review audiobook.

Olga Dies Dreaming was a fantastic contemporary fiction debut about a Puerto Rican American woman trying to find her way in NYC. I absolutely adored this story and all the laughs, surprises, and heartache that were blended together seamlessly to tell the story.

I'm so glad I read the book and can't recommend it enough.

The narrator was fantastic and I'm glad I was able to listen to the audiobook format of this book.

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance copy.

At first, I thought I was in for a light-hearted novel ala Jennifer Lopez’s The Wedding Planner. However, it took a quick serious turn and drew me in almost immediately. Xóchitl González’s writing is lyrical and with the combination of the audiobook’s narration, I found myself listening to parts over again. Olga Dies Dreaming is an enriching novel that was easy to get lost in.

I have mixed feeling about this book. Some parts I really liked and others I just could not connect to. Olga Acevedo is a Wedding Planner for Elite Clients. She has worked hard completely on her own to become successful. I really admired her ability to push forward and she is unconcerned about how others view her. Her brother, Pedro has become a Congressman in the Southern Brooklyn district they grew up in. I really liked the relationship between Sister and Brother. Both could lean on each other.

Yet, something is missing in Olga’s life. I liked that she is searching for her own identity, yet feels such a strong connection to her community, and the family she has now. She grew up in Southern Brooklyn and the area is gentrifying which understandably makes her feel like she is becoming invisible. Where can she go to find her roots and identity if not her sacred love for the Brooklyn she loves? She is great at helping others with their love life, but has a really hard time connecting to someone. She meets Matteo, and I really loved this part. He centers Olga and gives her a sense of real love that she has been missing. It is so hard for her to make a commitment, but she really wants to change.

I had a really hard time with Olga’s mom, Blanca. She has left Olga at 13 years old to become a revolutionary to Free Puerto Rico. So, this book is starts off sort of light and funny and suddenly it feels very heavy handed. Blanca only communicates with her children through letters that are manipulative and often very cruel. She only accepts her children’s choices if they are doing what she wishes for ‘the movement’ and that to her means a violent overthrow of the government. So, this becomes a jarring education on the fate of Puerto Rico through her eyes. Yes, when Hurricane Maria happened it was devastating for Puerto Rico and definitely much more should have been done. Still, this part was just hard to read. How could a mother meet her son and not care anything about him and his life. The same with Olga, she does not care at all about her, only asks if she can influence an awful person so she can help the revolution. This really was a bit too much. The book changed so much when I was reading this. Save this for another book.

So, I liked Olga and really wished the best for her. I liked that she has loves family, Matteo, and her community. She is free to choice to run her own life and actually feel some hope and joy. That was the best message the book gave. Plus, it really is a love story to Brooklyn and that was touching. I just think the book went in too many directions.

Thank you NetGalley, Xochitl Gonzalez, and Macmillan Audio for a copy of this Audio Book.

This book was absolutely not what I was expecting, although I'm not sure what I *was* expecting based on early reviews. What I got was a story that was surprisingly light and breezy, with a gentle humour. While it is indeed a story about oppression on many different levels, it's also a story of a character coming to terms with the different voices that all seem determined to tell her who she should be, from the producer on her ill-fated reality TV venture to her parents to society to her married lover, versus who she wants to be. I loved listening to every minute of Olga and will not hesitate to pick up more books by this author.

“The telltale sign that you are at the wedding of a rich person is the napkins. At the not-rich person’s wedding, should a waiter spill water or wine or a mixed drink of well liquor onto the napkin-covered lap of a guest, the beverage would bead up and roll off the cheap square of commercially laundered polyblend fabric, down the guest’s legs, eventually pooling on the hideous, overly busy patterned carpet designed and chosen specifically to mask these such stains. At the rich person’s wedding, however, the napkins are made of a European linen fine enough for a Tom Wolfe suit, hand-pressed into smooth order and trimmed with a gracious hemstitch border. Should the waiter spill any of the luxury bottled water, vintage wine, or custom-crafted cocktails designed by a mixologist for the occasion, the napkin would, dutifully, absorb any moisture before the incident could irritate a couture-clad guest.”

Xóchitl González’s debut novel, “Olga Dies Dreaming”, is a family saga which takes place mainly in Brooklyn and in Puerto Rico. The eponymous Olga is a wedding planner to New York’s elite, while her brother Prieto is a congressman representing South Brooklyn and parts of Queens and Manhattan. The siblings were raised by their grandmother in Sunset Park because their parents, who were previously Young Lord activists, took very different life paths. Their father, Johnny, relapsed into addiction and their mother, Blanca, after leaving the Lords, became radicalised and abandoned her children to advance a militant political cause.

We encounter the main characters in 2017, when Olga is forty and her brother is forty-four-years-old. Both are highly motivated, career-focused people who are invested in their communities despite divergent trajectories. They seemingly have it all together, however, under the surface they carry family secrets and traumas which come bubbling up when Hurricane Maria brings their mother back into their lives.

I loved González’s flawed and lovable characters especially witty, vibrant Olga. Both Olga and Prieto are children of the diaspora and family is an essential thread in the novel. The landfall of Hurricane Maria is crucial to the overarching plot, especially as we witness the lack of U.S. intervention in the aftermath. The novel covers identity, what it means to come from a fragmented family, race relations, government corruption and what it takes to be successful in America. It is also a homage to Brooklyn where Xóchitl González grew up.

About the author

Xóchitl González received her M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow and the recipient of the Michener-Copernicus Fellowship for Fiction. “Olga Dies Dreaming” is her debut novel. Prior to writing, Xóchitl wore many hats, including entrepreneur, wedding planner, fundraiser and tarot card reader. She is a proud alumna of the New York City Public School system and holds a B.A. in Art History and Visual Art from Brown University. She lives in her hometown of Brooklyn with her dog, Hectah Lavoe.

A huge thank you to @NetGalley, @flatiron_books and @macmillan.audio for the advanced audiobook.

In the beginning, Olga seems just like the rest of us boss-girls: high-stressed over achievers who just need their clients to behave and employees to show up on time. Then it turns out that her no-show employee couldn't come to work, because, well, he died. And Olga quickly, somewhat, sobers up.

What is different about Olga and her politician brother, though, is ultimately that they have an absentee mother with omnipresent eyes who is a political refugee. In their own ways, they are both still dealing with being abandoned by her and by her darned letters which push and prod and shout and never, ever, exude her love. Maybe if they can just be better, somehow, she will come back and it will be clear that she is proud of them, that she does love them. In the meantime, they'll keep being perfect (er, screwing everything up).

What's not to love about that sort of hook? Even better, it happens only yesterday in book world, that is just a few years ago, before, during, and after deadly Maria slams into Puerto Rico, where they still have family (and even, possibly?, a mother). I really can't do this debut justice in describing it--it hits so hard, unflinchingly showing us Americans and in all our bigotry and failing (without being preachy. Well, actually, it is preachy but only because we deserve it). I find it hard to believe this is a debut novel.

I listened to the audio, which was really, really good. In fact, when I was listening last night, just a little bit more before going to sleep (L O L), it got to a point where I sat up and was wide awake--thank goodness because I had to know what happened. The multiple voices really give the audio an added dimension and native Spanish speakers provide true authenticity. Excellent, Excellent book. I wish it would be required reading, but will just have to satisfy myself with the thought that folks are going to be jumping up and down to ban this, and hurray, that ought to help more of us rush out to read it (wish I were joking).

Thank you for an copy of the audio in exchange for an honest review. Now people, please go read/ listen to this book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for providing an ALC in exchange for my review.

Olga Dies Dreaming is a debut novel that makes me excited for works to come from the talented Xochitl Gonzalez. It's not a perfect book in my eyes (3.5 stars), but I'd eagerly pick up another work from Gonzalez and am excited to see how she matures as a writer.

The novel is about Olga, a wedding planner for upper-crust New-Yorkers. The story begins with a description of her rather pettily fleecing her customers, stealing their surplus stores of fancy napkins and other little luxuries, and knowing she'll get away with it. These parts of the stories absolutely sing--they are filled with rich detail and commentary on the excesses of the rich when it comes to the details of their weddings while they wring their hands over the expense of paying the photographer. In a way, this became one of the weaknesses of the book for me, if only because I assumed that this was going to be a larger part of the plot; I ended up finding myself disappointed when this premise was largely abandoned.

However, there's plenty more to like. As Olga continues with her career as a wedding planner, the many pressures of her life cause her to question her life's trajectory. These include: her brother Prieto's successful career in politics, commitment issues, class guilt, and a nagging mother who doesn't approve of her life choices. Her mother is a radical activist for Puerto Rican liberation who disapproves of Olga's career choice. Olga's career is financially lucrative, and while that may look like success to many, Olga's mother believes that her daughter was meant for a greater destiny than serving the whims of rich white people. Although she left the family behind to fully invest herself in her activism, the mother's presence looms large, as she continues to write Olga letters that express these very feelings. This is a vehicle for Olga to explore those essential questions: How do I reconcile my values, familial expectations, career, cultural identity, oh--and my own sense of happiness and fulfillment?

The book takes us down many winding side-roads in order to explore these questions, with both Olga and her brother, Prieto. And, because this is a lot to tackle, I began to feel like some of these side plots were a bit under-written--there's a romance that doesn't get much chance to simmer and a suicide (not a spoiler--this is within the first couple chapters), that feels like a cheap plot device.

Meanwhile, Olga's letters from her mother can come across as didactic idea-dumps that slow down the storytelling. After reflecting on the book, I did come to appreciate this more--these letters reveal someone who isn't really a round character at all, someone who has given themselves over to a single cause at the expense of all else, as opposed to the balance that Olga is seeking. It becomes clear that these letters, while they contain many good ideas, are supposed to feel preachy and and a bit tiresome. Nevertheless, they often had the effect of interrupting an otherwise compelling plot.

On the whole, though, I enjoyed this book--Xochitl Gonzalez is an interesting new voice who largely succeeds at balancing biting social commentary with a compelling and inventive plot, and I look forward to seeing what she does with future contributions.

Olga Dies Dreaming by Xóchitl González 

The debut novel by Xóchitl González tells the story of Olga and Pierto, sister and brother, who grew up in the Brooklyn neighborhood. Both of them will face the struggle to re-discover their identity as adults. They find themselves in a midst of events where they have to face their mother, involving them in her political agenda. This amazing, and heartwarming story of acknowledging the responsibility to one's heritage, brings a lot of education and discussion to the table.

Olga struck me as a strong and independent woman who still searching for what will make her happy. She dives into the search, thinking that the relationship will bring her a solution. Despite that, she has a hard time submissively following her arrogant boyfriend and subconsciously knows he does not appreciate her worth. I love how the author subtly wrote the boyfriend and his passive-aggressive remarks. Also, Olga is a successful business owner who hustles relentlessly to improve her career. I am shouting at the beginning of the book, where her employee Jan unexpectedly dies. Not only does the author decide to describe the polish funeral and give some representation to Slavic culture, but also she let us know that under cold demeanor, Olga is caring and loyal. She supports her brother's political career, or she tries to make amends with her cousin, she takes her time to create relationships with people. Pierto, on the other hand, seems like he has everything figured out, but under the mask of perfection that he wears every day, he has a secret that influenced all his decisions. Both of them live lives in the shadow of their mother, whose passion toward her home country made her leave her children, and now she actively parents via letters. 

What I like the most about this book is that the author so meticulously created such imperfect characters. They are real, they are making mistakes, they are learning how to live despite being adults in their 30s. There is a space for reflection over their choices and perspective of how political situation influences one's life. I feel like the author encourages us to discuss empathy and family, and our duty towards communities and heritage, without forcing her opinion upon us.

I absolutely loved this book. I finished it in two days. The characters were fresh and interesting, and the fact that it brought up Puerto Rico and the hurricanes and other disasters that hit it and the politics surrounding it, made this story really feel like a true story. I suppose a lot of it is a true story. This is a good pick for fiction and nonfiction lovers.