Neruda on the Park

CW: hate crime, murder, death. colorism, fatphobia, fatphobic comments, body shaming, eating Disorders. use of the f slur, misgendering, suicidal ideation, self-harm, blood.

Oh God yall don't know how badly I wanted to love this book. A literary fiction novel about two Dominican women fighting against gentrification. I thought this was going to be my perfect book. Sadly, I was wrong.

Let me start with the good before I start ranting.

Natera's writing stunning. She has such a way with words. I tabbed and highlighted so many quotes that I will look back on them for a long time. I was thrilled to see so much Dominican culture in this. I felt so seen within the mentions of my cultural foods and the “dichos” that are widely known in my country. I saw my family in each member of the community. That is one of the many things I appreciate about this book.

Now the not so good.

This was a mess. While the writing was great, the plot and story building was lacking. It fell into this thing that tends to happen in some debut literary fiction novels. And that is trying to tackle a lot of different topics at once. The conversation and development surrounding gentrification were interesting until we got to the last third of the book. It took me on a rollercoaster ride of events that felt so odd and took me out of the story. It felt like the author was trying to make the story take a dark turn when I didn't need to. It felt like one of those overly dramatic movies. Where the first half of it is chill with a sprinkle of drama here and there. And then, all of a sudden, a hurricane of events occurs, and you're left wondering what's going on. That is exactly how I felt. The twists were shocking in all the wrong ways. Like I said, a whole mess.
Also, there was an unnecessary amount of fatphobic comments that made me feel so uncomfortable as a fat person myself.

I will be reading whatever the author releases in the future. I think that she has the potential of writing something amazing in the future!

Thank you to Netgalley for the e-arc copy in exchange for an honest review.