3.5 stars. Thank you to Net Galley and HarperVia for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. These inter-related stories about women show a slice of life from stories taking place in Mexico and the US, as the characters immigrate to different parts, and the secrets that families keep. Most of the stories also have a bit of the supernatural interwoven. My favorites stories are the Girl with the Green Dress and Dona Cleanwell Leaves Home. This was a solid read.

I have been really loving short stories lately and this collection was wonderful. This collection explores the experiences of women, particularly Mexican/Mexican-American women. My favorite stories were The Girl in the Green Dress and Cuernacava; I really enjoyed the supernatural/ghostly elements of these two stories. I also really enjoyed the exploration of motherhood and "bad" mothers in Ven and Dona Cleanwell. I highly recommend this collection.

Cuernacava - 5/5
Ven - 4/5
Ada and Pablo - 3/5
Tango Smoke -3/5
The Girl in the Green Dress - 5/5
The Night at Nonna's - 4/5
Dona Cleanwell Leaves Home - 4/5

Thank you HarperVia and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This was my first Ana Castillo book;I recommend this book to readers who enjoy feminist literature and short story formats.

I enjoyed the strong feminist thread that weaved the stories together. There was a mix of genres, too, that kept me on my reading toes. My favorite story was Cuernavaca.

This was not a book I would highly recommend to any reader because I was left wanting more from each story. The stories were more plot driven than I prefer, and ultimately that impacted my reading experience.

An exceptional collection of stories. My brain is still trying to process how they could each be turned into a full length novel, but that would be an injustice to the marvel that is each story.

I will forever be stuck on the image of a nerdy Alejandro Fernandez and just for that, I am extra grateful to have had the opportunity to read this eARC.

Thank you to NetGalley and HarperVia for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for my honest review.

Doña Cleanwell Leaves Home
By Ana Castillo


Dedication: To every girl and woman who finds her voice and insists it be heard for the sake of those who cannot.


Doña Cleanwell Leaves Home is a feminist Latinx story collection. Castillo’s stories are finely distilled everyday portraits of women of different stage of life. In this collection, she looks at the hidden lives of women, breaking from the confines of social prescriptions, the politics of skin color and loves lost and found as well as female friendship and its growing pains. Castillo doesn’t shy away from messy characters nor the consequences of their actions. Her stories are evocative. Whether she has you feeling nostalgic for the golden age of Mexico when it was the playground of the rich and famous, or outrage and compassion for a teenager who must retrieve a “wayward” wife from Mexico City for her father; the reader is never left feeling neutral.

I highly recommend this story collection for readers who enjoyed The Consequences: Stories by Manuel Muñoz or How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water by Angie Cruz.


My sincerest thanks to @the_official_Ana_Castillo, @NetGalley and @HarperVia for the privilege of reading this digital ARC.

Ana Castillo is one of those writers I count on for engaging reading material. She has a knack for shining light on ordinary life in ways that make it bright and faceted: a combination of significant details that might not be captured by less adept writers.

The stories in Doña Cleanwell Leaves Home take place in Chicago, New Mexico, and Mexico City and contain overlapping characters. The overlap isn't enough to make this book a novel-in-stories, but it does allow opportunities to view individual people and situations from multiple perspectives. Doña Cleanwell examines the lives of Latinx families under stress—sometimes generational differences, sometimes a lack of trust within a marriage, sometimes gender tensions. These stories don't offer sweeping narrative arcs, but the small, detailed portraits they offer are fascinating, particularly when viewed in relation to one another.

If you enjoy writing about families, Latinx fiction, and/or short stories, this is a book you'll want to read—and will probably race through, as was my experience. Once I began reading I didn't put it down until I came to the final page.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own.

Ana Castillo has written a wonderful collection of short stories.Each story was involving interesting kept me engaged.The author has a lyrical style of writing and I’m looking forward to reading more by her.#netgalley #harpervia

In these stories, Ana Castillo centers the experiences of Mexican (-American) women, often middle-aged, who stray a bit from the typical narrative. The titular story has a daughter on the cusp of adulthood sent to Mexico to retrieve her mother who is living a wholly different life away from her husband and children. It questions the static nature of identity as applied to these women without their consent. What would they be like without these imposed constraints? Who are they apart from the trope-y parts? How does their individuality play with the stereotypical parts and exist jointly? The stories provide opportunities to ask these questions and get some answers.

I’m humbled to even write this review. Ana Castillo’s work is seminal to the reader (and even person) that I am, so it’s a privilege to even get an eARC copy. Thank you to the publishers at HarperVia books for the opportunity to review “Doña Cleanwell Leaves Home”.

“Doña Cleanwell Leaves Home” uses different short stories to explore the power dynamics of different Mexican women and the agency they carve out for themselves. In particular, the collection of short stories zeroes in on the double-standards facing women as they grow older especially with respect to love, desire, sex, and bodily autonomy.

Without spoiling much, the two stories that left the biggest impression on me (“Ven” and the titular “Doña Cleanwell Leaves Home”) namely in the way these stories deal with two “bad” mothers and the impacts of their decisions on their children - their daughters in particular. Castillo’s writing offers empathy and insight into the often maligned “bad” mothers in each story, while never shying away from the messiness of their actions.

It’s also so refreshing to have so many stories from the perspectives of different ages of women of color that doesn’t whittle them down to their motherhood or relationship to other characters. While some stories pack a bigger punch than others (I was hoping for more from the supernatural elements of “Cuernavaca” and “The Girl in the Green Dress”) , I can’t wait to hear the conversations this book can inspire especially in Latina or Chicana feminist spaces.

This is a really enjoyable and emotionally rewarding short story collection. I absolutely LOVE short stories, and this one is no exception. Ana Castillo is a talented writer. I will definitely read more from her in the future. I enjoyed all the stories, but my personal favorites were: "Ven", "Tango Smoke", and "The Girl in the Green Dress". The characters were full of substance and depth. Subject matter around death of a sibling, unfaithful spouses, absentee mothers, toxic teenage friendships, and ghostly encounters were some of the topics of the various stories. If you love short stories as much as I do, then I think you enjoy this. A lot of the stories had a quirky feel which I appreciated.

Thank you, Netalley and Harper Via for the digital ARC.

I enjoyed this collection of short stories very much! What I liked the most is the unusual endings; thought provoking and leaving the reader to decide and interpret (in a way). I want to read much more of Ana Castillo’s writing!