
Member Reviews

The story of Luciana’s Columbian grandmother is told by Luciana in the form of text messages and phone conversations with her sister, Mari who is away at college. Luciana is eighteen years old, preparing for college and struggling with coming out as a lesbian when her grandmother is diagnosed with an aggressive cancer. When her great aunt arrives to take care of her grandmother, Luciana learns shocking details about her grandmother’s past all while struggling with the possibility of losing her “favorite person”, criticism from her mother and serving as interpreter and liaison with her grandmother’s caregivers. As she stresses, she uses Mari as her sounding board, alternating between anger at Mari for being absent, filling Mari in on the “juicy” details of their grandmother’s life and begging Mari to come home.
I really enjoyed the unusual way that this story was told. The texts and phone conversations with Mari were so entertaining and seemed very real as conversations between almost adult sisters. Luciana was so animated which made her emotional ups and downs easily felt by the reader. Her expressiveness helped me feel her pain and struggles. The grandmother’s story was heartbreaking but it was interesting how she took her past in stride and lived her life as she wanted to. I did get a little bogged down with the excessive detail around the grandmother’s story but overall, enjoyed Luciana’s storytelling.

⭐️: 2.5 / 5
Publication Date: May 14, 2024
I want to thank Random House and Net Galley for allowing me to get an eARC of this book in exchange for an honest review!
Some of the coolest aspects of this story, is that the main character is of Colombian-American descent who grew up with a complicated relationship with the women in her family.
As for my reservations, I hated the format in which this was written. It’s told as a one sided phone conversation with other conversations sometimes and inconsistently italicized into the rest of the story. I found it hard to engage with. Additionally, I found the way of relaying other family stories to be too casual for my liking.
Overall I thought this had a unique premise and the way it was written was done in a way I had never seen before. However, I found it so difficult to connect with that I almost gave up on the book very early on. I’m ultimately happy that I stuck it out for the added storylines later in the book.
Would recommend for those who are fans of
- Contemporary stories
- Dysfunctional families
- Florida setting
⚠️ Hurricane season, sick family member

I came here for the chisme and this book definitely delivers. I loved the format of the book, which is a one-sided phone conversation that reveals all the drama that unfolds for a Colombian American family. That being said, it did take me awhile to get into the book at the beginning, but I switched to the audio version and that definitely brought the story to life. I wanted to love this one, but I wasn't a big fan of the main character's dramatic flare, so it fell a bit short for me.

This was a pretty charming read, although it took me awhile to get used to the format. Told exclusively from the voice of Luciana, the plot is told entirely through her side of phone calls to her older sister, Mari. You can gauge Mari's responses based on what Luciana says, but it means it is a fairly one-sided story and depiction of the family. There are bits where she is recounting conversations with others, so you can somewhat get a sense of the other characters, but this is SOLIDLY Luciana's story. She is a dramatic but compassionate teenage girl, dealing with coming out, changing family dynamics, and her grandmother's illness.
I wondered, about 30% in, if I should keep going because I was not loving this unique but challenging format, but I'm glad that I did. As Luciana gets more information regarding her family's history, everything became clearer to me. It would have been interesting to get Abue and Luciana's mother's perspectives, just to flesh out the storyline more (the mother comes across particularly terribly, but again - it's through the lens of her teenage daughter, so take it with a grain of salt).
It has a satisfying, bittersweet end, and I would be interested in a sequel - maybe told from Mari's end of the phone calls next!

I was intrigued by the description of this book by Melissa Mongollon. " A young woman reckons with her rowdy, unpredictable family and the revelation of their long-buried history in this wildly inventive debut."
I found the idea of this book to be highly fascinating. An entire book written as one side of a phone conversation. Very creative.
Luciana is the youngest of her Columbian American family. To say the the family is complicated is an understatement. The story starts with the evacuation of the area due to a hurricane. Luciana and her mother leave town leaving Luciana's grandmother, Abue, behind because she refuses to leave. Abue ends up moving in with Luciana and her mother and sharing a room with Luciana.
No matter what different techniques I tried, I could only hear Luciana's voice in a very frantic pace. I tried to literally slow down my reading so I might hear the main character in a more calm dialogue. But despite all of my attempts, I could only hear her rambling. I was exhausted by the pace of the story.
Possible triggers: Body shaming, parental fixation on weight and appearance.
I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
All thoughts and opinions are my own.
2.5 stars rounded up to 3.

Oh my gosh, a five star-er! Loved this book beyond words. A very interesting style where the main character has a series of conversations with her sister but the only dialog belongs to the main character. Modern day Florida, where questions of immigration surface, and questions of whether to acknowledge a daughter who just declared she is a lesbian surround the story of a dying grandmother. Told in hilarious prose, the struggles are downplayed with laughter. I absolutely loved this book.
Thank you NetGalley for a ARC!

A story told entirely through phone calls from younger sister Luciana to her older sister Mari. Luciana is often at odds with her mom and she is trying to deal with her grandma getting sick, all told via conversation with her sister. Overall, an interesting format concept, although it was hard to follow at times to determine who was speaking. Due to the formatting, the book felt like it could have been a little more concise to keep it from dragging.

A unique coming of age story. The author's choice of telling this story in the form of a phone conversation is very unique. To be able to tell the story in this manner is an incredible talent. Hard to believe this is a debut novel! A good recommend for HS students. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.

A truly enjoyed this. A very solid read that I think speaks to many readers. Really colorful and well developed characters and writing.

I almost gave up on this one when I started and realized the format what one side of a phone call — how could that possibly work? But the positive reviews and @whatsjennareading convinced me to persist, and I was very quickly sucked in by the narrator’s voice. I ended up absolutely loving how the story was told, and what these conversations told me about Luciana and her relationship with her sister, her grandmother, her mother and the rest of her family. It had me laughing at some points and in tears occasionally, and will absolutely be one of my favorite novels of the year. I partially listened to the audio, and it was perfection. Get your hands on a copy.

Once I got used to the format of this charming coming of age novel, I fell in love with Luciana and her family. The story is told as a series of telephone calls, but only from the side of Luciana, the youngest child in a large immigrant family in Florida. The feisty character of Abue stole the show - she's Luciana's grandmother and the keeper of family secrets. As Luciana cares for Abue, they both come into focus as strong, bonded women. I found myself feeling really proud of Luciana, and I would like an invitation to have dinner with this family, especially if I could sit by Abue! Thank you to NetGalley and Hogarth Books for the advance copy of this book!

Thank you for this ARC!
A very moving story about a POC’s coming of age.
I really saw a lot of myself in these characters and their circumstances and found it to be a very compelling story.

Thank you @netgalley for the Advanced Reader Copy of Oye by Melissa Mogollon. This is a coming of age story told by a Florida teenager with Colombian heritage. Her grandmother is sick and she finds herself being the caretaker. I got about 30% through it and decided to DNF, it was not holding my interest.

Such a unique mode of storytelling and I hope the book has a lot of success and readers love it.
The cover is stunning and the characters were well thought out.
I have learned that I do not fair well without conversation quotes (I can't tell the difference between words being said, thought, or are part of the story)

First of all, I was very excited to read this ARC of a book in exchanged for an honest review of this book. The premise sounded like something I would enjoy: the daughter of Colombian parents travels with her mother up the coast away from Hurricane Irma in 2017 and finds out that her Abuela is sick and the family has to care for her, but there is generational family drama? Sounds SO relatable.
Secondly, there are so many people who will love this novel as written.
Thirdly, I fully believe that if it were not written as a series of one-way cell phone text messages I would have loved this novel.
Forth, I was surprised that I didn't like this format.
So in summary, I wanted to love this novel, I expected to love this novel, but I did not, ultimately end up loving this novel. In fact by chapter four I was struggling to want to finish the novel. Ultimately, I wanted to see if Abue and her sister made peace, and that's what kept me going until the end.

Oye is such an unexpected gem of a book, and I am so grateful I picked it up.
I will admit, it did take me a while to get used to the narrative structure! The first time I started the book, I actually read the first chapter and then put it down for about a month, waiting for the moment in which I felt I could give the story the attention and care it deserved. When I eventually did pick it back up, I was completely captivated.
The tense and often conflicting relationship between the narrator and her sister rings deeply true to my own experience as the older sister who went far away for college, and it made me reflect on the first few years in which I was away in a new light.
Though steeped in Colombian immigrant culture, there are elements of the story that are universally relevant, such as the desire to know everything about your ancestors, and the shock that comes from hearing any story that reminds you they’re real people who were once young and mistreated. Additionally, the discussion of queerness is nuanced and never feels forced.
It’s a deceptively simple story about family, love, and loss, and I cannot think of anyone who wouldn’t find something to love in the novel.
Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!!

I got an ARC of this book.
I couldn't tell who was talking ever. It was not clear what was part of the voicemail or what was story. I only knew they were supposed to be voicemails based on the description. It was just a badly formatted book.

While it took me a bit to get into this book, I really enjoyed the way the story was told from on sided phone conversations between Luciana and her sister. Through the narration, we learn about Luciana's family: her mom, Abue, sister, and extended family. We see how generational trauma has affected the family and how as a high school senior, Luciana is working to live her life - except her family continues to have issues that are keeping her from being herself.
Funny and emotional, I really enjoyed this book and look forward to more from this author.

DNF
I'm not sure if the formatting of the eARC had anything to do with it, but the structure of the writing in the beginning was confusing. This also made it hard to get into the writing itself.

It took a while for me to get the flow of reading this. I enjoyed the plot, but had a hard time keeping up with the phone conversations and who was talking.