
Member Reviews

Oye is a coming of age story told completely through one side of a series of phone calls between an 18 year old girl and her sister.
I thought this was such an interesting and unique way to deliver a story, and it was very effective. I can think of few things that scream teenage angst more than ranting to your older sister on the phone. It felt so relatable and it took me straight back to that time in my life.
I loved how chaotic the family was and the way she relayed all of the recent news to her sister as if she was recapping the latest episode of a soap opera. It was funny, dramatic, and heartbreaking all at the same time.
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

Mogollon’s novel is a series of one sided conversations. It’s a unique take and one I’m sure many will like, but I’m going to be an outlier. It just didn’t capture or hold my attention the way I’d hoped. It was work to try to keep things straight, making it not as enjoyable as it could have been. Thank you to Random House and NetGalley for an ARC of this book..

Once I figured out the writing style, this book cracked me up. It’s all told through one-sided phone calls with bits of past conversations thrown in for context as to why Luciana is griping. Taking place in 2017 with Hurricane Irma bearing down on Florida, Luciana’s grandmother refused to leave, and now Luciana must deal with her mother on the horrible evacuation drive to safer ground. Through the many phone calls with her sister, Luciana learns more about her grandmother and why she’s so stubborn. Abue is the way she is because she didn’t back down and she’s dealt with enough tragedy in her life.
If you enjoy family dynamics and complicated relationships, you’ll enjoy the ride with this one.

3.5
I received this eARC from NetGalley and the publisher in return for an honest review.
The one sided conversation structure was disorienting and felt choppy to start. I felt that it was short-changing some of the humanity and connections, but it became more absorbing the further I read. A mix of emotions were successfully evoked. I did feel that only experiencing it through one sided conversations–Luciana relays other conversations to her sister and we never hear her sister–was somewhat limiting, and she was sometimes stereotypically a teenager. We never know her sister, Mari. I would judge Luciana’s view of her sister as extremely biased and limited, but we do get to know her grandmother well. And that is the focus of the story, the relationship between Luciana and her grandmother, Abue. Luciana is a high school senior and working through her identity and what she wants to do in her life and their already close relationship grows in importance while they share a bedroom when Abue becomes ill. Luciana and Abue serve significant roles to each other as they each prepare for the next stage in their lives.
This was a satisfying novel.

This story is told entirely through on sided phone conversations between two sisters. I initially had a difficult time with the format but once I switched to the audiobook I was able to jump right in. I highly suggest listening to this one. It was a beautiful story of coming-of-ago, embracing family and caring for our loved ones.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are mine alone.

Very unpopular opinion, but this one just did not work for me. I honestly was annoyed throughout the entire book. I did not enjoy that the book was written in the form of a phone call. I often found myself losing focus because it got confusing. The family drama was interesting enough, but was not engaging enough to preoccupy me from the style the book was written in. I also disliked most of the characters - including the one doing all the talking. This made it even more challenging to enjoy, when it is a one sided phone call and we are only reading one voice and perspective.
Luciana is the youngest of her large Columbian American Family. Through one-sided calls to her older sister who is away at college, Luciana shares the details of the chaos and crises when they have to evacuate their home due to a hurricane. Their grandmother, Abue is given a medical diagnosis that leads her to sharing a room with Luciana. She shares her secrets and forces Luciana to grow up.
This book just was not for me, however, I seem to be in the minority and would LOVE to hear your differing opinions.
Thank you Netgalley for my advanced reader copy.

Oye by Melissa Mogollon
#NetGalley published 5/14/24
#randomhousepublishing
DNF @ 13%
The story of this book seems to be good. Fun even. It seems to be about 2 Hispanic sisters from Florida. One a senior in high school the other away at college. As well as their strick annoying mom and their stubborn abuela (grandma). It's 2017 and hurricane Irma is about to hit and they are supposed to evacuate. And mom seems to be turning their escape into a vacation. That's as far as I got before I realized that I just can't keep reading the book the way it is written.
The way this book is formatted was getting me too confused. I can't tell who is speaking to who or which is a text from/to who. 🤦 Just too confusing. I would definitely be willing to try reading this book again if it was reformatted or rewritten a bit to make this all less confusing. Sorry. This is a miss for me.
#hogarth

The author was bold to have this book be told only through phone calls. When I first read it, I didn't understand what was happening until the middle of chapter 1, so that was a very bold choice. I think this story was entertaining and I appreciate the authentic way hispanic families were portrayed because as someone who was raised in a hispanic family, the trauma and the negative behaviors were very authentically written. I just wish there was more of something (I can't really place my finger on it) for the narrator because after a while, the way she kept dogging on her sister got annoying.
Overall, it was an entertaining read and I would recommend it to someone looking for a fun, easy read.

What a stunner of a debut! A coming of age story that is centered around Luciana as she navigates adolescence, an aging and ill Abuela (Abue, as they refer to her in the book), and her relationships with her mother and sister. Loaded with humor, family drama, and Colombian culture, this was such a fun reading experience.
One caveat for me - the format of the book took a bit of getting used to and is the only reason I didn’t rate this a 4. The novel is written as a one sided phone conversation between Luciana and her sister, Mari. I had to re-read sections of this a couple of times to fully take it in.
This is a GREAT choice for a book club, and it’s hot off the press! Thanks to net galley for providing an ARC. I can’t wait to read more from Mogollon!

Not to sound dramatic but this book is so beautiful and so well written and also kind of visionary?
Oye is told by our main character Nana and each chapter is a different one sided telephone call with her sister Mari. We first start off with Nana and her mother evacuating Miami during Hurricane Irma and worrying that their Abue refuses to evacuate. But things quickly change when Nana comes home to find her grandmother bright yellow with a tumor in her gallbladder.
Nana has to navigate her senior year without her sister, with a sick grandmother, and while having to stay closeted because of her family and her community.
Now I know this book sounds sad, and it is, but there’s so much more love than there is sadness. The sisterly love that Nana has for Mari is so clear and the love between Nana and Abue is maybe the most wholesome love story I have ever read.
I didn’t want this book to end and I wanted to give every character a massive hug. I also wanted to call my grandma and buy a ticket to Florida to go snuggle into her side and watch Hallmark movies.
Genuinely such a beautiful, funny, and poignant story.

Thanks to NetGalley and Random House Canada for this read. This was so good but can I also say a bit confusing to start. I was wondering how am I going to understand this one sided phone conversation because this was what he book was...one sided but it eventually became good as I got more comfortable with the writing. This was well done. Thanks !!

What I can't get over as I think of Melissa Mogollon's debut, OYE, is the unique and intriguing storytelling structure. The story of Luciana's family and her grandmother's illness is told all through one-sided phone calls from high school senior, Luciana, to her sister, Mari, who lives several states away for college. The format, though maybe not technically epistolary, reads in a very similar way.
We 'hear' Luciana share with Mari everything that's happening at home – frustrating family antics, diagnoses, Luciana's own anger at Mari for being so distant, newly-revealed family history – but part of what I found so fascinating about the format is the way that we are 100% only getting Luciana's take on things. Even reactions people have to Luciana are told to us only as Luciana perceives them, in a way that felt even stronger than a typical first-person novel. This means as readers, first off, we connect and identify with Luciana in a unique way. Secondly, what's left between the lines is a chasm a mile deep. We can only guess how Luciana's mom feels or what her sister really says or why she's keeping the family at arms-length. I thought that form of silence in the story was really rich.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for a free review copy of this book.

for the girls who like gossip
Luciana is a young girl who has been left behind to deal with a huge family emergency since her big sister Mari, left for university. overwhelmed with all that is happening around her she begins to vent to her sister about the things going on at home, all mostly having to do with their grandmother. a feisty woman who does what she wants, including not evacuating at the threat of an incoming hurricane.
the book is formatted in a way that’s wholly original as it’s made up of a conversation over the phone, told completely through Luciana’s POV with Mari on the other side, listening, just as us — the readers.
oye really kicks off when the grandmother is diagnosed with an illness, forcing Luciana to act as a caretaker. the duo spend more time together than ever and it is during this time that Luciana learns about her grandmother’s dark childhood who’s never quite left her.
this was SO funny, Luciana is the funniest character ever. I was cackling on each and every page and even when this book veered towards more dark themes like Luciana’s queer identity, the grandmother’s illness, and family drama it still felt like a light read.
ultimately oye is a very sweet coming of age that focuses on family, acceptance and love. I couldn’t help but think of my own abu while reading this, she has a lot of characteristics as the grandmother in oye, both are strong, wild women who do what they want.

Thank you net gallery for the advanced copy of this book. Way too much drama for me. Way too much venting. I did not find this book enjoyable at all, it felt like work.

Nothing better than a laugh out loud filled coming of age story. Easy, one sitting read. I look forward to reading more.

As the youngest in a large Colombian American family, Luciana is rarely the one taking charge of anything. But with her older sister Mari away at college, it's now up to her to help evacuate when a hurricane is heading toward her South Florida home. In the middle of this storm, Luciana and her mother try to evacuate, but it becomes a journey and a chance to learn about family stories.
Spanish for listen, the title Oye lends itself very well to the frequent phone calls back and forth within the novel. This sets up the tale to be something of a conversation that the reader is listening in on. There are no actions, no dialogue tags, and no descriptions. It runs the way conversation does, with occasional sidebar talk, and occasional italics for the other side of the conversation, but it's primarily Luciana talking to her sister beginning as she evacuates from Hurricane Irma. It takes a little while to realize how the novel is formatted, as it's different from what we're used to. Even so, conversations are still the way we share stories with each other, including important family information.
Luciana is a teen when this happens, and is less interested in family stories shaping them and more in what will happen in her senior year of high school. She doesn't want to deal with her mother, the casual homophobia, or being stuck in close quarters for an extended period of time. Following the hurricane is a health emergency that Luciana's mother wants to hide. She wants everything to be out in the open and true, and her mother goes into "beast mode" to hide the truth and put the best possible spin on everything. Being physically close to her grandmother, she learns more about the generational trauma that was hidden; each source has a slightly different variation on the truth, and we see the ripple effects down to Luciana and can extrapolate to her sister Mari. Each conversation gives us a greater picture of the family and how closely tied to each other they are.
I really liked Luciana and her voice, and what we see of her grandmother. She's a feisty lady, ready to take on everything on her own terms. We slowly see Luciana absorb this viewpoint, becoming more confident in herself and closer to the family members she initially resented. She grows up, and I'm sure she and her family will handle the challenge together.

This was such a FANTASTIC debut about a queer Columbian American woman dealing with her grandmother's recent cancer diagnosis. Told through a series of mostly one-sided phone conversations we get to know Luciana, who misses her sister off in college and is trying to hold the family together as they deal with a liver cancer diagnosis with their grandmother. Full of complicated family dynamics, disability rep (IBS, endometriosis, and ADHD) and laugh out loud humor, this is great on audio and perfect for fans of authors like Xochitl Gonzalez. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital and audio copy in exchange for my honest reveiw!

📚Book review📚 :: Oyé by Melissa Mogollon
Story premise: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Character development: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Writing style: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Ending: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
With Oye, Melissa Mogollon delivers one of the most genuine portraits of young women breaking the cycles of generational trauma I have ever read. And she does it while making you laugh out loud.
The entire book is told through phone conversations between 17-year old Nana and her older sister, Mari, who is away at college. But here's the thing. We only hear Nana's side of the call. Nana calls Mari with updates on the failing health of their grandmother, Abue. It starts off lighthearted. Two girls griping about their wild and unpredictable grandmother, their burdensome mother and each other. But as Abue's health declines, the truth of their family's past starts to reveal itself. And it's more painful than Nana and her sister were prepared for. The weight of the information is heavy and we start to see how the two sisters internalize pain very differently.
This book is about the women in our families, our matrilineal lines. It's about the weight women carry from their pasts and their mothers' pasts (and their mothers' mothers' pasts, you get it). It's about the pain we hide from one another and the way it shows up without our permission. It's about the capacity for love and understanding that we don't always expect to see in our foremothers but that is, more often than not, there.
It's an attempt to look at and truly see the roads the women who came before have walked and maybe, when necessary, get on to another path.
This book was the most joyful pain (or painful joy?) I've experienced in the form of a novel. Mogollon wrote Nana's dialogue so real, so true I could hear it. It wasn't like I was listening in on their conversation but like I was the one on the other end of the call. It was healing in a way I did not expect.
I connected to Nana and Mari's story more than I'd like to admit. As a daughter and a sister, it's impossible not to see yourself in one of the characters (and sorry to say, but wow, I am such a Mari!). It's unreal to me how much depth Mogollon gave to her characters without ever breaking from the phone call structure. Somehow, while Nana is sarcastically berating her big sister, we're also uncovering empathy, identity and growth. It's bountiful and mind-boggling. It's a masterclass in how to write dimensional, young characters true to their time period without being trite or ridiculous. In the same breath, she talks about the end of her grandmother's life as being both romantic and a "nod to Bad Bitch Incorporated." Because this is the only way we, Fall Out Boy listening, elder millenials, ever learned how to cope: whimsy and sarcasm.
The end of the book tore my heart to pieces but promptly put it all back together. It was tragic but cathartic and hopeful. It's how I wish all of our stories would end. With a little bit of peace.
And with that, I think there's some healing I have to go do. Thanks, a lot Mogollon.

Oye is told from one-sided phone conversations that our main character, Luciana, is having with her sister Mari, who is away at university. When the novel opens, Luciana and her mother are on an adventure to avoid Hurricane Ivan, which is headed straight for Miami, but quickly transitions to dealing with concerns around the family's aging matriarch. The entire book felt like I was eavesdropping on someone else's life, but I didn't want to stop!
The writing structure was challenging to get into at first, however after a few chapters, it started to feel very natural. I would recommend powering through if you are struggling at first.
Because this was told from a teenagers point of view, it felt very YA in exploration of themse. As someone who does not typically love YA, I felt some of the themes were very surface level, Additionally, I would have liked to see additional exploration of immigration, aging, and LGBTQIA+ themes which were mentioned, but did not have much impact on the overall story arc.
Overall, I enjoyed Oye, and felt the reading experience was very unique. If the premise is interesting to you, I would give it a read.

Thank you to NetGalley, Random House Publishing, and the author for allowing me to read the ARC of OYE, in exchange for an honest review.
To be honest, I was not a big fan of the one-sided phone call style because I kept trying to change their voices in my head and lost track of who was saying what to whom. I definitely felt sympathy for a teenager, Luciana, having to take care of her stubborn grandmother, who won’t leave home due to an impending hurricane. With Abue living in Luciano’s bedroom, Luciana begins her journey into maturity and finds there are lots of challenges and family secrets she has to understand. Abue is lucky to have such a strong granddaughter. This story is fun to read, just take your time.