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An often dark yet overall moving short story collection that centers Latinas living in Denver, Colorado. These women’s experiences are diverse, though common themes run throughout the collection, including familial and domestic violence, what happens when people we love change, and the culture and resilience of Latinas. Each story felt distinct and important yet also blended well together, to form a collection about working-class women whose experiences are often ignored in the landscape of American literature.

While I felt drawn to this book based on its premise of promoting female friendship, feminine power, and the experiences of Latinas overall, I struggled to fully emotionally connect with quite a few of the stories. With one story, “Tomi,� about an ex-con who once drove her car into an elderly couple’s picture window and now takes care of her eight-year-old nephew, I felt such a sense of tenderness and warmth toward the characters and how much they cared about one another. Yet this sense of tenderness felt absent from other stories. Perhaps this is because the stories often expose the true cruel realities these women experience, and being removed from Latinx culture I may not have the worldview for this collection to resonate. Regardless, I hope that Kali Fajardo-Anstine feels proud for this distinct set of short stories and that it continues to connect with other readers.

A few of other standout bits that I enjoyed from the collection: in the title story, “Sabrina and Corina,� the notion of watching a friend you love change in front of you and all the emotions that accompany that, the reoccurring point of how patriarchal and capitalistic forces often bind women to men for economic security even when those men hurt them, and the call-out of whiteness and gentrification in “Ghost Stories.� Curious to read what others thought of and think of this book.